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Syrian Refugees and Digital Health in Lebanon: Opportunities for Improving Antenatal Health

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CHI '16: Proceedings of the 2016 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing SystemsMay 2016 Pages 331–342https://doi.org/10.1145/2858036.2858331
Published:07 May 2016
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CHI '16: Proceedings of the 2016 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems
Syrian Refugees and Digital Health in Lebanon: Opportunities for Improving Antenatal Health
Pages 331–342
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ABSTRACT

There are currently over 1.1 million Syrian refugees in need of healthcare services from an already overstretched Lebanese healthcare system. Access to antenatal care (ANC) services presents a particular challenge. We conducted focus groups with 59 refugees in rural Lebanon to identify contextual and cultural factors that can inform the design of digital technologies to support refugee ANC. Previously identified high utilization of smartphones by the refugee population offers a particular opportunity for using digital technology to support access to ANC as well as health advocacy. Our findings revealed a number of considerations that should be taken into account in the design of refugee ANC technologies, including: refugee health beliefs and experiences, literacy levels, refugee perceptions of negative attitudes of healthcare providers, and hierarchal and familial structures.

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      ACM Conferences cover image
      CHI '16: Proceedings of the 2016 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems
      May 2016
      6108 pages
      ISBN:9781450333627
      DOI:10.1145/2858036

      Copyright © 2016 Owner/Author

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      Association for Computing Machinery

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      Publication History

      • Online: 7 May 2016
      • Published: 7 May 2016

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      CHI '16 Paper Acceptance Rate 565 of 2,435 submissions, 23%
      Overall Acceptance Rate 7,181 of 30,669 submissions, 23%
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