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Biostatistics Health Informatics Seminar: "Towards Whole-Person Orientations for Digital Mental Health”

Abstract

Numerous factors influence mental wellness, including-but not limited to-social and community relationships, structural factors, and cultural schemas that either advantage or disadvantage an individual's access to equitable healthcare. Yet, many digital mental health tools adopt reductionist care models, ignoring the complex social and community contexts in which an individual is situated. Whole-person approaches take a broader perspective, considering multiple aspects of the person's well-being and societal factors. Serving as an example of how to build digital mental health tools that embrace whole-person perspectives, I highlight my community ­engaged health informatics work designing, building, and evaluating a digital mental health promotion intervention featuring an embodied conversational agent (ECA) with church-affiliated Black adults.

The aim of this project was to address racial and ethnic mental health treatment disparities by increasing church members' mental health care-seeking intentions and reducing community stigma using a digital mental health tool. In the formative work, I conducted a series of participatory design workshops where church members identified their most pressing health concerns and the value of designing for spirituality, co-designed early concepts for the application, and selected mental health features for the intervention.

Drawing on insights from this prior work, I present the final design of the digital mental health promotion intervention system grounded in principles of psychology and stigma theory. I then evaluate the intervention in a 14-day field trial with 12 church members. I conclude by sharing my future plans for designing innovative digital mental health interventions with older adults that build mental health literacy, foster supportive social connections, and encourage care-seeking to support mental health.


Time and Location

1PM Eastern time, Thursday, February 6, 2025
47 College Street, Rm 106B

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Admission

Free

Tag

Lectures and Seminars
Feb 20256Thursday