JMIR Publications

ABSTRACT

Technology-enabled services (TESs) are clinical interventions that combine technological and human components to provide health services. TESs for mental health are efficacious in the treatment of anxiety and depression and are currently being offered as frontline treatments around the world. One hope is that these interventions will be able to reach diverse populations across a range of identities, and ultimately decrease mental health treatment disparities. However, this hope is largely unrealized. TESs include both technology and human service components, and we argue that cultural responsivity must be considered in each of these components to help address existing treatment disparities. To date, there is limited guidance on how to consider cultural responsivity within these interventions, including specific targets for the development, tailoring, or design of the technologies and services within TESs. In response, we propose a framework that provides specific recommendations for targets based on existing models both at the level of technological components (informed by the Behavioral Intervention Technology Model), and the level of human support (informed by the Efficiency Model of Support). We hope integrating culturally responsive considerations into these existing models will facilitate increased attention to cultural responsivity within TESs to ensure they are ethical and responsive for everyone.