Designing Persuasion: Health Technology for Low-Income African American Communities
In the United States, African Americans face a disproportionate amount of diet-related health problems. For example, African American adults are 1.6 times more likely to have diabetes than their Caucasian counterparts. Individuals in low-income communitie
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Abstract. In the United States, African Americans face a disproportionate amount of diet-related health problems. For example, African American adults are 1.6 times more likely to have diabetes than their Caucasian counterparts. Individuals in low-income communities may face a greater risk because they typically have less access to healthy foods. Due to the significant diet-related problems within the African American community, public health researchers call for approaches to health promotion that take into account the relationship between culture and dietary habits. In this paper, we discuss three important considerations for the design of technologies that address the diet-related health disparities in low-income African American communities. These considerations include designing for cultural relevancy, modeling health behavior, and encouraging healthy behavior through the use of social psychological theories of persuasion. We use a game design example to illustrate how each of these considerations can be incorporated into the development of new technology. Keywords: Culture, Health, Low-Income, Nutrition, Persuasive Technology.
1 Introduction The United States faces a serious crisis as rates of diet-related diseases such as obesity continue to rise. Today 65% of people 20 and older are either overweight or obese [8]. This statistic reflects an increase of over 75% in obesity prevalence since 1991. While these statistics are sobering, the issue becomes even more alarming when looking at the disproportionate amount of diet-related health problems in minority groups such as the African American community. In 2002 the heart disease related mortality rate for African Americans was 30% higher than that of Caucasians [16]. In addition, African American adults are 1.6 times more likely to have diabetes than their Caucasian counterparts [16]. While these statistics reflect an aggregate of income levels, low-income African Americans may be even more at-risk than those with higher income levels. For example, low-income communities typically have less access to healthy foods and may be more accepting of overweight [13, 18]. Because of the disproportionate amount of diet-related diseases that exist within the African American community, public health researchers advocate the development of programs and services that take into account the ways that dietary habits are tied to aspects of culture [1, 3]. These culturally relevant interventions should account for the beliefs, norms, behaviors and challenges that exist within a particular cultural Y. de Kort et al. (Eds.): PERSUASIVE 2007, LNCS 4744, pp. 24–35, 2007. © Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2007
Designing Persuasion: Health Technology for Low-Income
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group [23]. Accounting for these cultural factors can help researchers address health issues in a way that is sensitive to the existing values and practices of a community. While many culturally targeted approaches to health issues have resulted in programmatic efforts (e.g. church-based educational campaigns), fe
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