Design for Healthy Horizons in a Local Community

Abstract

Communities and social support are considered to be important for people's ability to cultivate a healthy lifestyle. Yet, digital technology for everyday health predominantly focuses on individual use and performance optimisation. In this paper, we present how we have designed a mobile application to support community collaboration around health based on a conceptual model aiming at bringing a horizon of connectedness with health to residents in a local community. The research is conducted as a long-term participatory design process in a neighbourhood with low socioeconomic status and significant health challenges. We introduce a community perspective on everyday health and the codesigned application focused on local collaboration around physical activity. Via workshops with residents and community workers, we critically examine opportunities and challenges for the application's ability to form a horizon and facilitate community collaboration around health in the neighbourhood 1 .