Barriers and facilitators of physical activity, sedentary and sleep behaviours in 3 to 4-year-old children from low-income families : a study protocol

Background: This study will evaluate the barriers and facilitators that families experience in adhering to the 24-hour movement behaviours guidelines as outlined by World Health Organisation (WHO). Methods: The study is a mixed-methods study and will recruit between 20 to 30 low-income families with children aged 3- to 4-years living in Scotland. For the quantitative part, children will be asked to wear an Actigraph (GT3X +) accelerometer to measure physical activity, sedentary behaviour, and sleep. Parents/guardians will be asked to keep an activity diary outlining when their child has had to remove the device (i.e., showering, bathing, swimming) and record the child’s screen time each day. Once the data has been analysed, a unique activity profile chart will be sent out to each family illustrating their child’s 24-hour movement behaviours (i.e., time spent active, time spent sedentary and on screens, time spent sleeping). The activity profile will provide a day-by-day output as well as a weekly average for each of the 24-hour movement behaviours. Qualitative data will be collected using the Asynchronous Remote Communities method (ARC). The ARC involves participants completing activities using an online closed Facebook group. Parents/guardians of 3- to 4-year-old children will be asked to engage in group discussion tasks using the private and closed-group online platform (a minimum of 6 and a maximum of 8 families per discussion group). The quantitative data collated from the questionnaire and activity monitor will be presented through descriptive analysis and after the 6-week asynchronous process is complete, qualitative data will be collated and analysed using Braun and Clarke’s reflexive approach to thematic analysis. Discussion: The data collected will provide an understanding of what barriers and facilitators parent’s/guardians’ experience in relation to adhering to the 24-hour movement behaviour guidelines. This could potentially lead to the design and implementation of support and interventions to help families struggling to adhere to the guidelines

The miscarriage circle of care:towards leveraging online spaces for social support

BACKGROUND: Lack of social support during and after miscarriage can greatly affect mental wellbeing. With miscarriages being a common experience, there remains a discrepancy in the social support received after a pregnancy is lost. METHOD: 42 people who had experienced at least one miscarriage took part in an Asynchronous Remote Community (ARC) study. The study involved 16 activities (discussions, creative tasks, and surveys) in two closed, secret Facebook groups over eight weeks. Descriptive statistics were used to analyse quantitative data, and content analysis was used for qualitative data. RESULTS: There were two main miscarriage care networks, formal (health care providers) and informal (friends, family, work colleagues). The formal care network was the most trusted informational support source, while the informal care network was the main source of tangible support. However, often, participants’ care networks were unable to provide sufficient informational, emotional, esteem, and network support. Peers who also had experienced miscarriage played a crucial role in addressing these gaps in social support. Technology use varied greatly, with smartphone use as the only common denominator. While there was a range of online support sources, participants tended to focus on only a few, and there was no single common preferred source. DISCUSSION: We propose a Miscarriage Circle of Care Model (MCCM), with peer advisors playing a central role in improving communication channels and social support provision. We show how the MCCM can be used to identify gaps in service provision and opportunities where technology can be leveraged to fill those gaps

On designing an oral history search system

Purpose - The aim of this research was to conduct a U.K. based assessment of oral history technology and to identify the most important features that should be available in any oral history search system. Design/methodology/approach - A co-design approach involving interviews and focus groups was adopted. The Framework Approach with elements of grounded theory was used to analyse transcripts to identify themes. Findings - Analysis found that ‘ethics, consent and control’, ‘accessibility and engagement’, ‘publicity and awareness’, and ‘innovative technologies’ were the four major themes identified. It was also established that there is limited understanding of oral history in the digital age, numerous interests, ethical concerns, lack of publicity and several key attributes that those designing an oral history search system or archive should strive for. Findings also identified that further exploration into sampling selected technologies on different user groups is required in order to develop software that would benefit the field. Research limitations/implications – Participants were all recruited from one geographic region. The qualitative methodology utilised could be deemed to have elements of subjectivity. Practical implications – This study has identifying important features of any oral history search system and offered design recommendations for any developer of an oral history search systems. Originality/value - This research has validated some previous findings for oral history search systems from more limited user studies. New issues for consideration including usability, software development and marketing have also been identified

Powered Wheelchair Users’ Experiences of Urban Mobility: Researching Access and Disablement through Mobile Methodologies and Digital Technologies

Ph. D. ThesisInaccessible environments and transportation exclude disabled people from full participation in society. Accessibility is affected by a wide range of socio-material factors, including the interaction between the environment and mobility devices. Yet to date, little research has investigated powered wheelchair users’ experiences of mobility, or how their knowledge might inform policymakers or service providers. In this thesis, I have worked with powered wheelchair users to document their experiences of mobility and explore how these might be conveyed to other people. An observational go-along method was used, travelling with thirteen participants as they captured their experiences using ‘JourneyCam’, a bespoke smartphone video and data collection tool. The data were used as prompts in semi-structured interviews following each journey. Two further participants were interviewed without first using JourneyCam. Finally, through a series of group workshops, nine participants explored how their collective experiences and knowledge might be used to create more accessible environments. Powered wheelchair users accumulate situated knowledge which they use to navigate disabling barriers, but this knowledge is gained through significant personal labour and experiences of psycho-emotional disablism. Participants highlighted a wide range of socio-material enablers and disablers to their mobility, including barriers associated with poorly implemented ‘accessibility’ features. However, their efforts to convey their knowledge to service providers were met with indifference, and funnelled through individualised complaints processes. In response participants sought more effective modes of engagement that might bring about systemic change, in line with their commitment to social model principles of confronting structural disablement. I conclude that not only could powered wheelchair users’ situated knowledge be a valuable resource for service providers and policymakers, but it is also a form of collective resistance to ableist societal practices. The social model of disability remains relevant for disabled people’s efforts to counter disablement, serving as an ‘oppositional device’ that fosters shared resistance.EPSR

Understanding the Role of Citizen Generated Data in the Context of Public Health – A Case Study on Breastfeeding and FeedFinder

Ph. D. Thesis.Exclusive breastfeeding is recommended by the World Health Organisation until an infant is 6 months old. Yet, despite this, the UK has the lowest rates of breastfeeding seen across the world with only 1% of mothers exclusively breastfeeding at 6 months. While promoting breastfeeding is considered a public health priority in the UK, budget cuts and subsequent reduction in local authority services have made it difficult to provide consistent support for women choosing to breastfeed. As such, ‘Breastfeeding Welcome’ campaigns that aim to provide localised support for women and organisations have either disappeared or are poorly resourced. Against this background, FeedFinder has been developed to provide a platform for women to find, rate and review places in real-time based on how breastfeeding friendly they are. The application has been used by over 14000 women, mapping over 5000 venues with reviews from across the UK, with some reviews now seen for venues in Asia, America and Australia. FeedFinder is a civic technology, that is, where citizens have the potential to contribute to the shaping of communities, environments and potential local service delivery mediated through technology. The main aim of this research was to understand how FeedFinder and the data it provides might be used to leverage community support for women choosing to breastfeed in public. Three strands of research contribute to the process of achieving the overall aim; (1) understanding FeedFinder, its users and the data it provides, (2) investigating if FeedFinder is a useful tool to professionals and voluntary groups who promote and support breastfeeding and (3) design and evaluation of a new geoanalytics website for support of breastfeeding which includes a community breastfeeding policy to offer practical guidance to public-facing organisations seeking to improve provision and support for breastfeeding women. The research followed a mixed methods and action research approach, being driven by the needs and values of the multiple stakeholders involved; parents, public health improvement practitioners, infant feeding coordinators, breastfeeding peer support workers and local public-facing organisations. Following the completion of strand 2 of the research, it was clear that FeedFinder was useful for parents but the process to access the data for breastfeeding support or local public-facing organisations to use was not efficient. This led to the iterative design and development of the FeedFinder website, community breastfeeding policy, poster and video followed by an evaluation with stakeholders (strand 3). The newly developed FeedFinder website and community breastfeeding policy have shown promising potential to provide a tool for local communities to do more to support breastfeeding. The expert evaluation revealed that breastfeeding support services welcome the website in practice, though some concerns persisted on trust and legitimacy of data therein. This thesis describes the way in which citizen-generated data can be utilised in public health provision while outlining the key limitations and concluding with recommendations for sectors with potential to impact on improving the breastfeeding rates across the UK and so meeting recommendations for optimum infant feeding.EPSR

The use of proxies in designing for and with autistic children: supporting friendship as a case study

Participatory Design (PD) is an approach for designing new technologies which involves end users in the design process. It is generally accepted that involving users in the design process gives them a sense of ownership over the final product which enhances its usability and acceptance by the target population. Employing a PD approach can introduce multiple challenges especially when working with autistic children. Many approaches for involving autistic children and children with special needs were developed to address these challenges. However, these frameworks introduce their own limitations as well. There is an ethical dilemma to consider in the involvement of autistic children in the design process. Although we established the ethical benefit of involving children, we did not address the ethical issues that will result from involving them in these research projects. Among other issues, the nature of design workshops we as a community currently run require working with unfamiliar researchers and communicating with them while social and communication differences are one of the main diagnostic criteria for autism. When designing for autistic children and other vulnerable populations an alternative (or most often an additional) approach is designing with proxies. Proxies for the child can be one of several groups of other stakeholders, such as: teachers, parents and siblings. Each of these groups may inform the design process, from their particular perspective, and as proxies for the target group of autistic children. Decisions need to be made about what stages in the design process are suited to their participation, and the role they play in each case. For this reason, we explore the role of teachers, parents, autistic adults and neurotypical children as proxies in the design process. To explore the roles of proxies we chose friendship between autistic and neurotypical children as the context we are designing for. We are interested in understanding the nature of children's friendships and the potential for technology to support them. Although children themselves are the ones who experience friendship and challenges around its development and peer interaction, they might find it difficult to articulate the challenges they face. Furthermore, it is unrealistic to expect children to identify strategies to help them overcome the challenges with friendship development that they are facing as it assumes children have the social skills to come up with these strategies in the first place. Hence, it is necessary in this context to consider proxies who can identify challenges and suggest ways to overcome them

Unplatformed Design: Reconceptualising Social Media Technologies as Tools for Coordinated Action, Participation and Engagement

Ph. D. Thesis.Social media technologies are becoming more and more enmeshed in our personal, professional and civic lives. Increasingly, we are just as likely to use social media to book a doctor’s appointment as we are to make plans with friends. This ever-widening context of use is a testament to the versatility and flexibility of these types of technology, and points to their potential for shaping, structuring and supporting new ways of participation, engagement and interaction. The aim of this thesis is to explore this idea through designing with, investigating and reconceptualising social media technologies. With respect to existing literature around the appropriation of technologies and the materiality of information, I argue that social media can be conceptualised as a ‘design material’ from which other forms of participation can be created. To support this, I undertake the design, deployment and evaluation of a large-scale social media-based participatory engagement, ‘WhatFutures’. From insights generated in this design process, and with an accompanying analysis of other empirical examples of appropriation of social media for participation, I then propose the model for ‘unplatformed design’. This conceptual model details the material qualities of social media technologies in respect to how they can be appropriated in the coordination of participation. Lastly, I put this model into practice in two design-led case studies: in the design and deployment of a peer support system for people undergoing extreme weight loss as part of managing diabetes; and in the formulation of design considerations for a social media-based language learning system. There are multiple outcomes from this is conceptual, empirical and design-led inquiry. I fully detail the final designs and corresponding design processes of two full large-scale, social media-based engagements. I present and interpret a variety of design decisions around the appropriation of social media for coordinating participation. Crucially, I introduce the novel model of unplatformed design, identifying four material qualities of social media technologies, and how they may be configured or augmented towards coordinating participation. This model fundamentally reimagines the role and possibilities of social media technologies within design, it looks past existing perceptions and ingrained usage patterns, and proposes a more constructive and participatory orientation of social media to our lives