JMIR Publications

ABSTRACT

Background:

Participatory research methodologies can provide insight into the mHealth app use, cultural preferences and/or needs, and health literacy of health disparity populations such as African Americans and Hispanics.

Objective:

This paper describes a one-year multi-method participatory research process that directly engaged English-speaking African American and bilingual/Spanish-speaking Hispanic adults in developing a prevention-focused personalized mHealth information seeking smartphone application.

Methods:

Three design sessions were conducted to inform the iteration of a prevention-focused personalized mHealth information seeking app. The sessions consisted of two design teams (Team One: six English-speaking African American adults ; and Team Two: seven bilingual/Spanish-speaking Hispanic adults). Participants described their goals, motives, and interests regarding prevention information using different approaches: 1) collage and card sorting (design session one), 2) interaction with the app prototype (design session two), and 3) rating of cultural appropriateness strategies (design session 3).

Results:

Participants were asked to share their likes and dislikes about the sessions and the overall experience of the design sessions. Both African American and Hispanic design session teams reported a positive participation experience. Primary reasons for their experiences included 1) the opportunity for their views to be heard, 2) collectively working together in the design process, 3) having their apprehension about mHealth reduced, and 4) an opportunity to increase their knowledge of how they could manage their health through mHealth. This feedback informed each design session and the community-engaged process. In addition, the specific findings for each design session informed how we designed the app for both communities.

Conclusions:

This multi-method participatory research process revealed four key lessons learned and recommendations for future research in mHealth app design for health disparity populations: Lesson 1: Community partnerships are key in engaging health disparity populations in mHealth app development research; Lesson 2: Application of Community-Based Participatory Research Principles continues to yield promising results when engaging health disparity populations in mHealth research. Lesson 3: Interactive design sessions allow individuals to uncover their needs and opportunities for the mHealth tool being developed; and Lesson 4: Sustained design sessions using multiple approaches can provide an in-depth understanding in mHealth preferences and needs in appearance, function, and content. Future developers should consider these lessons and recommendations for more integrative app development approaches to ensure the apps on the market are contributing to eliminating health disparities and achieving health equity.