Involving Syrian Refugees in Design Research

Talhouk, Reem; Balaam, Madeline; Toombs, Austin L.; Garbett, Andrew; Akik, Chaza; Ghattas, Hala; Araújo‐Soares, Vera; Ahmad, Balsam; Montague, Kyle

doi:10.1145/3322276.3322335

Cited by 39 publications

(35 citation statements)

References 36 publications

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“…In light of such evidence, practical implications include raising awareness among health care providers and PHC management that existing research indicates that Syrian refugees in Lebanon have high technological and health literacies [ 8 , 9 , 20 ] and creating spaces in which refugees may practice and demonstrate their technological and health literacies. Interactions between health care providers and refugees mediated through technological interventions themselves may create spaces in which refugees are empowered within the health care system and can work toward debunking the negative views surfaced in our study.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Integrating Health Technologies in Health Services for Syrian Refugees in Lebanon: Qualitative Study

Talhouk¹,

Akik²,

Araujo‐Soares³

et al. 2020

J Med Internet Res

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Background Lebanon currently hosts around one million Syrian refugees. There has been an increasing interest in integrating eHealth and mHealth technologies into the provision of primary health care to refugees and Lebanese citizens. Objective We aimed to gain a deeper understanding of the potential for technology integration in primary health care provision in the context of the protracted Syrian refugee crisis in Lebanon. Methods A total of 17 face-to-face semistructured interviews were conducted with key informants (n=8) and health care providers (n=9) involved in the provision of health care to the Syrian refugee population in Lebanon. Interviews were audio recorded and directly translated and transcribed from Arabic to English. Thematic analysis was conducted. Results Study participants indicated that varying resources, primarily time and the availability of technologies at primary health care centers, were the main challenges for integrating technologies for the provision of health care services for refugees. This challenge is compounded by refugees being viewed by participants as a mobile population thus making primary health care centers less willing to invest in refugee health technologies. Lastly, participant views regarding the health and technology literacies of refugees varied and that was considered to be a challenge that needs to be addressed for the successful integration of refugee health technologies. Conclusions Our findings indicate that in the context of integrating technology into the provision of health care for refugees in a low or middle income country such as Lebanon, some barriers for technology integration related to the availability of resources are similar to those found elsewhere. However, we identified participant views of refugees’ health and technology literacies to be a challenge specific to the context of this refugee crisis. These challenges need to be addressed when considering refugee health technologies. This could be done by increasing the visibility of refugee capabilities and configuring refugee health technologies so that they may create spaces in which refugees are empowered within the health care system and can work toward debunking the views discovered in this study.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Integrating Health Technologies in Health Services for Syrian Refugees in Lebanon: Qualitative Study

Talhouk¹,

Akik²,

Araujo‐Soares³

et al. 2020

J Med Internet Res

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“…In the third study participants engaged in five design engagements in which participants constructed narratives of coping with food insecurity and documented their experiences through the co-creation of a booklet. We have provided more detailed accounts of the methods and the findings in [25][26][27]. Audio recordings from all the engagements and focus groups were transcribed and thematically analyzed [6,7] by the first author who is fluent in Arabic, the language in which this research was conducted.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

A Call For Embedding Dignity In Humanitarian Technologies

Talhouk¹,

Montague²,

Garbett³

et al. 2019

Proceedings of the 9th International Conference on Communities &Amp; Technologies - Transforming Communities

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Increasingly, technologies are being designed to support refugees. While HCI research has explored several aspects of refugee experiences, the importance of embedding the principle of dignity within technological designs is yet to be explored. In this paper we focus on the theme of dignity that was a prominent theme across three research projects we conducted with Syrian refugee communities in Lebanon. We show that the experiences of refugee participants are characterised by a loss of dignity, as well as by attempts to maintain dignity that may be mediated by technology. By highlighting the value given to dignity by our participants we emphasise the need for designers and HCI researchers to consider how technologies may create a space in which dignity is maintained and dignified interaction may take place. CCS CONCEPTS• Human-centered computing • Human computer interaction (HCI) • Empirical studies in HCI

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“…The final project we reflect on here is ongoing work with refugee women living in settlements in Lebanon [103]. Collaborating with several communities the research team has explored how design and technology can work to overcome some of the challenges that these communities face, from access to antenatal care [102], through to living with food poverty [101]. In contrast to previous case studies this work is based outside a western context, and broadens our concerns within 'women's health' beyond the biological to social (in this case food poverty).…”

Section: Study #3 -The Health Of Refugee Women In Lebanonmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In contrast the lead researcher of this programme of research approached undertaking this research as a process of collaboration and cooperation. Simple choices, like to sit on the floor with participants, to allow the women to 'pamper' the researcher by having them apply henna, or attend to her unruly eyebrows all served to show the women the humanity of the researcher, and her view of these women as equals [101].…”

Section: Humanisticmentioning

confidence: 99%

Woman-Centered Design through Humanity, Activism, and Inclusion

Almeida

Balaam

Comber

2020

ACM Trans. Comput.-Hum. Interact.

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Women account for over half of the global population, however continue to be subject to systematic and systemic disadvantage, particularly in terms of access to health and education. At every intersection, where systemic inequality accounts for greater loss of life or limitations on full and healthy living, women are more greatly impacted by those inequalities. The design of technologies is no different, the very definition of technology is historically cast in terms of male activities, and advancements in the field are critical to improve women's quality of life. This paper views HCI, a relatively new field, as well positioned to act critically in the ways that technology serve, refigure and redefine women's bodies. Indeed, the female body remains a contested topic, a restriction to the development of women's health. Women's health-as a medicalized field exists, and people's experiences of it are problematic for many. This is visible today in e.g. socio-cultural practices in disparate geographies or medical devices within a clinic. Moreover, the biological body is part of a great unmentionable, i.e. the perils of essentialism. We contend that it is necessary, pragmatically and ethically, for HCI to turn its attention towards a woman-centered design approach. While previous research has argued for the dangers of gender-demarcated design work, we advance that designing for and with women should not be regarded as ghettoizing, but instead as critical to improving women's experiences in bodily transactions, choices, rights, and access to and in health and care. In this paper, we consider how and why designing with and for Woman matters, and use our design-led research as a way to speak to, and illustrate alternatives to this field. CCS CONCEPT insertion: The new template enables you to import required indexing concepts for your article from the ACM Computing Classification System (CCS) using an indexing support tool found in the ACM Digital Library (DL). The tool generates formatted text after you have selected your terms. To insert your CCS terms into your document, copy and paste the formatted text from the CCS tool using the "https://dl.acm.org/ccs/ccs.cfm" link into the "CCS CONCEPTS" section.

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Involving Syrian Refugees in Design Research

Cited by 39 publications

References 36 publications

Integrating Health Technologies in Health Services for Syrian Refugees in Lebanon: Qualitative Study

Integrating Health Technologies in Health Services for Syrian Refugees in Lebanon: Qualitative Study

A Call For Embedding Dignity In Humanitarian Technologies

Woman-Centered Design through Humanity, Activism, and Inclusion

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