Citizens’ Juries: When Older Adults Deliberate on the Benefits and Risks of Smart Health and Smart Homes

open access articleBackground: Technology-enabled healthcare or smart health has provided a wealth of products and services to enable older people to monitor and manage their own health conditions at home, thereby maintaining independence, whilst also reducing healthcare costs. However, despite the growing ubiquity of smart health, innovations are often technically driven, and the older user does not often have input into design. The purpose of the current study was to facilitate a debate about the positive and negative perceptions and attitudes towards digital health technologies. Methods: We conducted citizens’ juries to enable a deliberative inquiry into the benefits and risks of smart health technologies and systems. Transcriptions of group discussions were interpreted from a perspective of life-worlds versus systems-worlds. Results: Twenty-three participants of diverse demographics contributed to the debate. Views of older people were felt to be frequently ignored by organisations implementing systems and technologies. Participants demonstrated diverse levels of digital literacy and a range of concerns about misuse of technology. Conclusion: Our interpretation contrasted the life-world of experiences, hopes, and fears with the systems-world of surveillance, e ciencies, and risks. This interpretation o ers new perspectives on involving older people in co-design and governance of smart health and smart homes

Citizens in the Digital Age: ICTs safety & security

The idea is to extend the studies and try to create a common umbrella not only for cybersecurity but for any kind of technology solution that will range between security, safety and even disaster prevention or recovery and management. If we consider safety, we have natural and human disasters but also infrastructure, transportation, safety at working places and our every day life, health, … If we speak about security—apart from cybersecurity, we have human security, security of goods, assets and items (including food, drugs, etc.), but also the security of ideas. Some actions in this field: On the occasion of the 10th World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) in May 2015 in Geneva, a group has been created in order to support the idea to enlarge the scope of action line C5. Building confidence and security in the use of ICTs. This group will have the possibility to discuss at the Preparatory Meeting of the WSIS in October at the United Nations Secretariat, New York. The hope is that this will lead to a new programme for the follow-up of the WSIS. To conclude with an example, Grillo is a compact device, a cube, created by a group of young Mexicans, in order to provide citizens with an early warning system in case of an earthquake. The moderator then followed-up with the question concerning the mentioned four aspects of cybersecurity (safety, security, disaster prevention, recovery and management) taking us away from a more technical aspect to a more human one in terms of the era we live in and how we deal with disasters in these areas. Why those four areas? In order to be more explanatory, Mr Ronchi referred to an example of the technical university he is teaching at: There are a lot of skills related to security and safety in different departments. However, in each department, people used to work as stand-alone researcher and no one tried to mix up the knowledge, the different skills in order to improve the potential of the group. It took 10 years to put all of them together and to create a cluster of people consisting of chemical engineers, structural engineers, mechanical engineers, people from the information science etc. and to create a small unit of about 50 people that share the same concept of security. During the very first meeting almost every participant declared learning something from a colleague coming from another sector and the usefulness of transferring this to the own sector. Starting from this small nucleus a kind of international group, a joint research group, has been created aggregating additional forces in order to improve this holistic vision about risk assessment in general. This is very closed to what was mentioned in the presentation: the idea to put together things that are usually separated

Statistical Panopticism and Its Critique

The article develops the concept of statistical panopticism, thereby combining the French approach of economics of convention (EC) and Michel Foucault’s concept of panopticism. The differences between Foucault’s original notion of panopticism and statistical panopticism are emphasized. It is argued that statistical panopticism has been made possible by the enormous growth of quantification, datafication, linking, and centralization of numerical data production, data collection, and data analysis. This has been (mainly) realized by private enterprises and implemented in different social spheres but also in private situations. From the perspective of EC, quantification, big data, and statistical panopticism have to be related to the foundational conventions of data production (measurement) and data interpretation. Foucault has analyzed the neoliberal and indirect form of contemporary governance. Statistical panopticism works as a dispositive for this neoliberal form of governance. Its asymmetric and mainly invisible character is sketched. Also the critique and the deficiencies of critique of political and economic usages of numerical data and indicators are discussed

Digital Alchemy: A Hermeneutic Phenomenological Investigation of Digital Storytelling for Peace and Justice

This study explores the experiences of undergraduate students enrolled in an education I-Series (University of Maryland undergraduate courses designed to inspire innovation, imagination, and intellect) course, Good Stories: Teaching Stories for Peace and Justice. In this course students are asked to produce digital stories that project themes of peace and justice. The locus of this study focuses on the essential question: In what ways do participants world their experiences producing digital stories for peace and justice? The methodology of hermeneutic phenomenology is employed in order to elucidate interpretive understandings about digital storytelling for peace and justice in the experiences of nine undergraduates over the course of one semester. The metaphor of alchemy is used since the practice of alchemy entailed amalgamating base metals in the hopes of transmuting them into gold. Jung (1968) likens this process to our experience of becoming individuated, whole, and healthy human beings. Digital media amalgamates image sound and written text in order to enhance narrative, making it an apt metaphor since it captures the synergism inherent in both the metaphor of alchemy and the multimodality inherent in digital stories. The methodological practices for this inquiry employ van Manen's (1997) human science research. This inquiry elucidates the participants' experiences on being students of digital media in addition becoming agentive knowers capable of projecting digital stories for the purposes of peace and justice. The conspicuousness of developing the technological know-how of producing digital media also takes particular precedent in this study. Themes of the ways in which students are concerned by being students, producing digital stories the "right" way, and developing particular stances on their understandings of peace and justice are disclosed. Additionally, the pedagogical implications for designing teaching and learning of digital media are discussed. These implications focus on ways educators may develop pedagogical tact in engaging and apprenticing students in digital media. These pedagogical understandings may open possible opportunities for classrooms to be transformed into digital media studios where students develop critical stances through the practice of digitally designing narratives for the purposes of extending care, caring, and caring for others to possible global audiences

Creating Age-friendly Communities

The "Creating Age-friendly Communities: Housing and Technology" publication presents contemporary, innovative, and insightful narratives, debates, and frameworks based on an international collection of papers from scholars spanning the fields of gerontology, social sciences, architecture, computer science, and gerontechnology. This extensive collection of papers aims to move the narrative and debates forward in this interdisciplinary field of age-friendly cities and communities

The Handbook of Salutogenesis

This open access book is a thorough update and expansion of the 2017 edition of The Handbook of Salutogenesis, responding to the rapidly growing salutogenesis research and application arena. Revised and updated from the first edition are background and historical chapters that trace the development of the salutogenic model of health and flesh out the central concepts, most notably generalized resistance resources and the sense of coherence that differentiate salutogenesis from pathogenesis. From there, experts describe a range of real-world applications within and outside health contexts. Many new chapters emphasize intervention research findings. Readers will find numerous practical examples of how to implement salutogenesis to enhance the health and well-being of families, infants and young children, adolescents, unemployed young people, pre-retirement adults, and older people. A dedicated section addresses how salutogenesis helps tackle vulnerability, with chapters on at-risk children, migrants, prisoners, emergency workers, and disaster-stricken communities. Wide-ranging coverage includes new topics beyond health, like intergroup conflict, politics and policy-making, and architecture. The book also focuses on applying salutogenesis in birth and neonatal care clinics, hospitals and primary care, schools and universities, workplaces, and towns and cities. A special section focuses on developments in salutogenesis methods and theory. With its comprehensive coverage, The Handbook of Salutogenesis, 2nd Edition, is the standard reference for researchers, practitioners, and health policy-makers who wish to have a thorough grounding in the topic. It is also written to support post-graduate education courses and self-study in public health, nursing, psychology, medicine, and social sciences