Healthcare App Design in Low-Resource Contexts: Challenges, Practices, and Opportunities

TL;DR

This paper discusses the unique challenges and opportunities in designing healthcare apps tailored for low-resource settings, emphasizing infrastructural, cultural, and usability considerations.

Contribution

It highlights the need for context-aware design practices and fosters collaboration among researchers and practitioners in underserved environments.

Findings

Identifies infrastructural and cultural barriers in low-resource healthcare app deployment.

Shares field experiences and best practices for effective digital health solutions.

Suggests opportunities for collaborative research in low-resource healthcare technology.

Abstract

Digital health technologies are increasingly used to improve healthcare access and delivery worldwide. However, many healthcare applications are designed for environments with stable infrastructure, high digital literacy, and strong institutional support. These assumptions often do not hold in low-resource contexts where healthcare delivery often depends on community health workers, caregivers, and informal care networks. Designing effective healthcare applications for such environments requires attention to infrastructural constraints, cultural contexts, language diversity, and usability challenges. This Birds of a Feather session aims to bring together researchers, designers, and practitioners interested in healthcare application design in low-resource contexts. The session will provide an informal forum for discussing challenges encountered in the design and deployment of digital health technologies in underserved settings, sharing field experiences, and identifying opportunities for collaboration within the Interactive Health (IH) community.