Healthcare has been at the forefront of the actions the world has taken to react to Covid-19. How people are monitored, diagnosed and treated, as well as aftercare, now has the opportunity to be rethought. Proactive healthcare, crossing cultural barriers to health and wellbeing, physical and mental, and providing access to advice, expertise and treatments to ensure the safety of patients and health workers will be radically changed and the Grand Challenge will look at the possibility of designing a new model of proactive, transparent and safely accessible healthcare for all.
MRes Research
Dongxiang Zheng and Jiho Kim
Health in the dictionary sense refers mainly to the biological state, such as the standard by which life can normally perform life activities or the stage of being free from illness and injury. However, health is substantially a stereoscopic definition that seeks a chain of well-being by comprehensively reviewing various factors from the perspectives of mental, social, environmental, and economic, etc., beyond just being free from illness. Therefore, we defined health as "A state of complete physical, mental and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity." the same as the WHO constitution.
Design for Health
Design for health is a design aimed at dealing with human physical/mental/social health conditions and ultimately improving the quality of life. Health is the basic goal for a human being to pursue and a holistic problem that needs to be addressed most urgently by the development of the times. The need for Design for health is due to transnational interdependence and the development of the times such as topographical and environmental changes. The understanding of design for health is not only a design field or category but also a criterion, method and concept. Including personal behaviours and group relationships in health, and is closely related to the overall social environment, science and technology, covers the psychological and physical connections.
How to read the diagram:
This is a bubble diagram showing how we set up and drew questions.
We expressed each of the 5 topics in different colours. The diagram shows the flow of the major topics to subtopics and related keywords as the difference in the size and colour of the bubble, while at the same time illustrates our study flows on topics. Solid straight lines show derivation and direct relationships, and curved dotted lines mean that they affect each other. A thickly outlined bubble means directly affecting the questions derived from a topic. We wanted to show how stereoscopic we should look at and approach topics of health by seeing that various keywords and content between topics are not only connected to their area but also the content of other topics.
Through research on the environment (including living, awareness environment), technology (including current technology and future trends), humanitarian (including ethical, policy issues), relationships (including personal, public health), approach(including internal, external approach and discussion), we divided Design for health into 5 main directions: Health inequality, Self-reliable personal hygiene, Workplace health, Telehealthcare and Public Health. According to the situation and related connections of these 5 different topics, each progressive relationship and keywords were analysed to explore the opportunities. Besides, we tried to show the direction of exploration in different cases to inspire people to lead to specific problems and possibilities. Through this process and exploring the specific direction of topics, we researched issues and relationships and explored cases to prove the importance of topics. Based on these studies, the final 5 design topics of our group were derived from the 5 health topics.
5 Key Issues:
1) Health inequality
“How design can make vulnerable areas in healthcare to overcome regional and participatory restrictions in humanitarian aid by leading individuals to participate more quickly and actively?”
Health inequality is a wide range of issues, from the level of gaps between classes and regions in a society to the level of gaps between countries. It has long been dealt with to resolve and numerous countries and institutions are involved. However, there are still many things to overcome, such as political conflicts, geographical, technical, participatory limitations. Plus, the debate over privatisation in healthcare is still ongoing between the concept of human rights and commodities.
Like a problem that occurs in society is not caused by a single factor, health inequality happening worldwide is intertwined with a number of other countries and causes. Here we can see transnational interdependency and intersectionality, which is a fundamental characteristic of today's globalised world. Besides, climate change is polarising health inequality to a higher limit, and every time a disease disaster like COVID-19, we can see how vulnerable the current position of health inequality is.
2) Self-reliable personal hygiene
“How design can help people from blind spots in the healthcare system to build self-reliable personal hygiene that can generate positive health ripple effects?”
Personal hygiene is an important starting point in the huge health chain. It also affects individual confidence and dignity, but furthermore has a profound connection to public health and its system. Moreover, the development of sanitary products and technology has a great influence on personal hygiene habits and practices, as in the development of soap. Therefore, proper and sufficient hygiene of individuals is a way to build a huge immune network in society, such as the effect of vaccines.
Personal hygiene should be reached at an independent level without relying on public hygiene, but a considerable number of countries are still in difficulties with practicing basic personal hygiene.
3) Workplace health
“In the flow of transition to teleworking and automation in a workplace environment, how can design sustain ownership and participation while maintaining mental well-being of employees?”
Today's trend of the times, such as the 4th industrial revolution and COVID-19, is expected to make significant changes in the appearance and health of the workplace environment, and is already ongoing.
We can consider the importance of workplace health has risen to the surface as the paradigm has begun to shift from building an office for working to building an office built for workers, which is already quite a trend. Efforts are also being made to manage the health of both indoor/outdoor work environments, and it is undeniable that the workplace health is not just for welfare, but also for the company's output.
If that happens, the concept of the workplace will change and there is a high possibility that new health problems will emerge. We can already see that isolation and depression are deepening from long-term teleworking in the current crisis.
4) Public health
“How design can make people perceive and proactively learn the importance of health awareness?”
(For example: through interactive advertising and health knowledge platforms to attract the public to actively learn about medical and health information.)
Health awareness includes awareness of diseases, physical and mental health, as well as health impacts on the overall society (such as waste disposal) and daily health habits and behaviours that are easily overlooked by people. Although the society has paid more and more attention to improving citizens’ health awareness (such as launching and encouraging people to participate in various health awareness campaigns) in recent years, most of the people still lack health awareness.
In recent times, it is necessary to make people understand how to properly use and clean up medical supplies. Since people need to take anti-epidemic measures (such as disposable masks) in their daily travel and life, this will generate a small amount of medical waste. If they are not handled in the correct way, they may pollute the environment. In addition, it is also important to let people know the correct information and methods for epidemic prevention.
5) Telehealthcare
“How to improve the trust and security of patients in telehealthcare through design, and help doctors and patients establish a stable connection?”
Starting from the application field, telehealthcare has unique advantages in medical activities and resource allocation. It is one of the main trends in future healthcare development, it is becoming a part of numerous hospitals' business plans. It is true that the pandemic has given a good opportunity for development in the field of telehealthcare. However, it has also exposed multiple problems in healthcare management and service mechanisms.
Reading List
Health inequality
Self-reliable personal hygiene
Workplace health
Public health
Telehealthcare
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