Bridging Community, History, and Culture in Personal Informatics Tools

A healthy diet and increased physical activity are essential for reducing the prevalence of cardiovascular disease and related deaths, a worldwide public health concern that disproportionately affects Black American communities. Still, Black Americans can face unique challenges meeting dietary and physical activity requirements due to inequities in access and quality of care, environmental and local factors, and difficulties in changing individual health behaviors. Personal informatics and self-tracking tools are one way of increasing awareness of health behaviors to motivate behavior change. However, there are still gaps in knowledge about what encourages different users to engage with personal informatics tools over time, particularly when used in collaborative, community-health settings. This paper contributes a nuanced understanding of fifteen participants' reasons for engaging in an existing community-based health education and behavior change program that combines collaborative self-tracking with culturally relevant content and social engagement to motivate heart-healthy behaviors. We illustrate participants' positive and negative experiences engaging in self-tracking and collaborative tasks during the program. We also discuss how participants envision that integrating technology might support or hinder participant engagement and the work of deploying community-based public health interventions. Finally, we discuss design implications for culturally informed, community-based personal informatics tools that engage Black American's in heart-healthy activities.

Impact of Coronavirus Infectious Disease (COVID-19) pandemic on willingness of immunization—A community-based questionnaire study

Background Coronavirus infectious disease 2019 (COVID-19) has had a great impact on global health, but with relatively few confirmed cases in Taiwan. People in Taiwan showed excellent cooperation with the government for disease prevention and faced social and behavioral changes during this period. This study aimed to investigate people’s knowledge of COVID-19, attitudes and practices regarding vaccinations for influenza, pneumococcus and COVID-19. Methods We conducted a community-based, cross-sectional questionnaire survey from September 2020 to October 2020 among adults in northern Taiwan. The four-part questionnaire included questions on sociodemographic characteristics, knowledge, attitude, and practice toward COVID-19. Results Among a total of 410 respondents, 58.5% were categorized as having “good knowledge” responding to COVID-19. Among the total respondents, 86.6% were willing to receive influenza or pneumococcal vaccines, and 76% of them acted to receive COVID-19 immunization once the vaccine became available. Compared with the respondents with poor knowledge of COVID-19, those with good knowledge had a more positive attitude toward receiving influenza or pneumococcal immunization (OR 3.26, 95% CI = 1.74–6.12). Conclusions Participants with good knowledge of COVID-19 had greater intent to receive immunization for influenza or pneumococcal vaccine. The promotion of correct knowledge of both COVID-19 and immunization preparations is necessary.