Abstract
As the population ages, chronic disease management (CDM) has become a challenge for current public health services. Previously, designing for patients with chronic diseases often saw them as passive objects of design, hindering their agency. Understanding patients' agency is very important for health management, but the empowerment approach in the health field is often a disguised paternalism. This study aims to use the empowerment theory to reframe the possibility of the design empowering CDM and propose corresponding means of empowerment. We identified four types of design empowerment in CDM and articulated specific empowerment strategies through case studies. Our study therefore enriches the theoretical landscape regarding the role of design empowerment within CDM, offering insights for amplifying the voice of design at the crossroads of empowerment and CDM.
Keywords
empowerment; design empowerment; chronic disease management
DOI
https://doi.org/10.21606/drs.2024.544
Citation
Liu, R., and Wu, D. (2024) A bottom-up transformation: Design empowering chronic disease management types and strategies, in Gray, C., Ciliotta Chehade, E., Hekkert, P., Forlano, L., Ciuccarelli, P., Lloyd, P. (eds.), DRS2024: Boston, 23–28 June, Boston, USA. https://doi.org/10.21606/drs.2024.544
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License
Conference Track
Research Paper
Included in
A bottom-up transformation: Design empowering chronic disease management types and strategies
As the population ages, chronic disease management (CDM) has become a challenge for current public health services. Previously, designing for patients with chronic diseases often saw them as passive objects of design, hindering their agency. Understanding patients' agency is very important for health management, but the empowerment approach in the health field is often a disguised paternalism. This study aims to use the empowerment theory to reframe the possibility of the design empowering CDM and propose corresponding means of empowerment. We identified four types of design empowerment in CDM and articulated specific empowerment strategies through case studies. Our study therefore enriches the theoretical landscape regarding the role of design empowerment within CDM, offering insights for amplifying the voice of design at the crossroads of empowerment and CDM.