Poster #68 - Co-designing a culturally relevant technology system for child development support

• In Event: Poster Session 03

Abstract

In Washington state, significant racial and ethnic disparities in child health outcomes prevail, despite recent efforts to increase access to preventive health services (Albetta et al., 2019). American Indian/Alaska Native, Black, Hispanic, and Native Hawaiian/Pacific Islander infants in King County experience the highest rates of infant mortality, low birth rate, and inadequate prenatal care (King County Best Starts for Kids, 2019). While developmental screening identifies areas for early intervention, many racial/ethnic minority and low-income children in King County do not receive regular screening with providers. In a 2018-2019 report of a participatory landscape analysis in King County, providers and parents shared a need for family-centered, culturally-relevant, and linguistically-relevant screening tools and services (King County Best Starts for Kids, 2019). In this study, we engage racial/ethnic minority parents of children aged 0-5 in sharing their cultural experiences with early childhood health promotion, co-design possible advanced technology-based health interventions, and develop an assessment method for culturally relevant technology-based systems to reduce health disparities. We use a community-driven research approach to engage families in co-design and ideation sessions.
We have completed two sessions with ten parents of at least one child under age 5 who are low-income, first-generation immigrants from West Africa. In these formative sessions, we aimed to document parents’ lived experiences with navigating guidance about their child’s health, identify the successes and challenges for parents as they act on child health or development guidance, and identify people and resources that they rely on for support to be successful. Parents engaged in open-ended storytelling, semi-structured group interviews, and a pre-session survey during these sessions. From these sessions, we identified that this group of parents 1) prioritizes addressing the basic needs of their children, 2) relies on guidance from family, friends, their community organization, and providers about their child’s health, and 3) uses technology (i.e., smartphones) for organization and planning their family’s life. In these sessions, parents shared that their parenting approach prioritizes survival, as they cannot achieve other activities if basic needs are not met. As a group, they reflected on the complexities of supporting their families while having immigrant and low-income statuses. When navigating guidance about their child’s health, we identified that parents monitor and assess information about their child’s health across multiple sources. Parents shared that they view information from their providers as serious, but determine when to seek guidance from their child’s provider. Parents also agreed that their trust in information sources is essential, and they prefer to receive information from parents with similar cultural backgrounds and parenting experiences (e.g., parents of twins). Lastly, parents view their smartphones as an organization and communication tool, where they manage calendars and communicate with people in their child’s support network. In our subsequent co-design sessions, we will further explore how parents might be better connected with social needs support and trusted individuals in their child’s support networks. We will support parents in documenting their support networks and develop design concepts that respond to areas when more or different supports are needed in those networks.

Authors

• Akeiylah DeWitt, University of Washington
  Presenting Author

• Julie Kientz

• Kendra Liljenquist