CMU Human-Computer Interaction Institute Seminar

Speaker: Gabriela Marcu, Assistant Professor, University of Michigan School of Information

Title: Designing for Coordination and Intervention in Behavioral Health

Description: Behavioral and mental health is an underserved area, and receives less focus in health informatics research. Technology can play a role in different types of coordination with meaningful impact on behavioral and mental health. However, it is critical for design in this space to engage with issues of agency, marginalization, and trauma. In this talk, I will share two projects in which I have grappled with these issues. The first explores challenges of coordination across clinical, school, and home contexts in support of children’s behavioral development. Collaborative technologies are needed to help stakeholders cross these organizational and disciplinary boundaries, so they can reduce tensions and work together. The second project I will share involves the coordination of strangers. UnityPhilly is a community-based intervention that uses a smartphone app to coordinate life-saving layperson response to an opioid overdose. Just prior to the pandemic, we completed a one-year pilot study with 112 participants who helped to revive 74 victims of overdose. Across these two projects, I will reflect on how we can design mobile and collaborative technologies to fill gaps in care coordination and provide supplemental interventions for behavioral and mental health.

Attend in-person (CMU Newell Simon Hall, Room 1305) or view virtual livestream/recording