Future Prospects in Health Equity and Tech Innovation

There is increasing awareness that health disparities are largely a result of the socioeconomic position in which you are born, the housing and neighborhood where you reside, and the accessibility of educational and job opportunities. These are known as the social and structural determinants of health. By the time a person arrives at a hospital, their health outcome or their chance of survival may have already been pre-determined. Can technological advances in health devices and health-care delivery mitigate the social and structural determinants of health and eliminate disparities? New design and innovations such as smart homes, wearable health monitoring devices, telehealth, artificial intelligence to analyze patient data, and video games to treat mental health are redefining how individuals take control of their own health and how they engage with health care providers.

This Design@Large will address issues related to health equity and the role that technology plays in shaping health outcomes. Join us on the 2 nd floor of the Design and Innovation Building from 4-5pm on May 18th for a discussion with Ninez A. Ponce, Professor at the UCLA Fielding School of Public Health’s Department of Health Policy and Management, Tavae Samuelu, the Executive Director of Empowering Pacific Islander Communities (EPIC), Camille Nebeker, Director of UC San Diego Research Ethics Program, and Christopher Longhurst, the Chief Medical Officer and Chief Digital Officer at UC San Diego Health.

Following Design@Large, the Design Lab will be hosting a showcase of Health Technology Designs from 5-6:30pm on the 3 rd floor of the Design and Innovation Building. Faculty, researchers, and students will offer demonstrations of innovate health technology designs. Learn about digital mental health, assisted surgery using virtual reality, how smart phones can be adapted to become blood pressure monitors, how indigenous people have been at the forefront of health innovation for centuries, and much more!

Featured Panelists

Ninez A. Ponce is Professor in the UCLA Fielding School of Public Health’s Department of Health Policy and Management and was Associate Director of UCLA’s Asian American Studies Center (2011-2013). She also devised the rationale and implementation of Asian ethnic oversamples and the cultural and linguistic adaptation of the survey. She teaches courses in applied research methods, health policy and health economics. Her research contributes to the elimination of racial/ethnic and social disparities in health and health care in three areas: multicultural survey research, social penalties in health and health access, and population-based cancer prevention and control studies.

Tavae Samuelu is the daughter of a pastor from Leulumoega and a nurse from Saleimoa. As the Executive Director of Empowering Pacific Islander Communities (EPIC), she’s a passionate advocate for her people and is committed to liberation for all. Tavae was born and raised on Tongva land and credits her time on unceded Ohlone territory for her political identity and consciousness. Before joining EPIC, she served as the Development Director for the RYSE Youth Center in Richmond and has since become a member of RYSE’s Board of Directors. Tavae is the Vice President of the Asian Pacific Policy and Planning Council (A3PCON) board as well as a member of the National Council of Asian Pacific Americans (NCAPA) Executive Committee. The pandemic has taught her that her most important title is Aunty Vae.

Camille Nebeker, EdD, MS, is an Associate Professor with appointments with the UC San Diego Design Lab and the Wertheim School of Public Health and Human Longevity Science. She is director of the UC San Diego Research Ethics Program. She co-founded and directs the ReCODE Health center, which provides education and consultation services to guide ethical practices in technology-supported health research. Dr. Nebeker applies a human centered design approach to shape ethical research practices (e.g., risk assessment, informed consent, return of results), which has led to development of decision support tools (see: Digital Health Checklist and Framework and Connected and Open Research Ethics platform). She serves as a member of the World Health Organization Digital Health Roster of Experts, American Association for the Advancement of Science Committee on Scientific Freedom and Responsibility, IEEE Organizational Governance of AI Working Group and the Society of Behavioral Medicine Digital Health Council. Dr. Nebeker’s research has received support from federal, foundation and industry sources including the NSF, NIH, Office of Research Integrity, RWJF and IBM. Publications related to her work are accessible via: https://escholarship.org/uc/recodehealth_publications.

Christopher Longhurst is the chief medical officer (CMO) and chief digital officer (CDO) at UC San Diego Health. This dual, complementary role provides leadership to medical staff, ensuring that standards and protocols are in place to provide the highest quality of care to patients. He also serves as an associate dean at the School of Medicine, overseeing and aligning our education and research missions within the clinical environment, and leading our journey to become a highly reliable, learning health system. As CMO, Dr. Longhurst is responsible for maintaining excellence in clinical care, including regulatory, patient and clinician satisfaction, quality and safety, and medical affairs. He works alongside leaders at UC San Diego Health, the School of Medicine, and UC Health to improve care delivery and oversees UC San Diego Health’s reputation for delivering safe, innovative, patient-centered care.

About Design@Large

Design@Large is a speaker series hosted by The Design Lab at UC San Diego, where each quarter we examine a topic in society and the relevance and implications through the lens of human centered design.

For the first time in the nearly 10-year history of the Design@Large speaker series the UC San Diego Design Lab is partnering with a state-wide organization, California 100, to present an expanded hybrid experience to not only expand the audience of our series, but to deepen the means of engagement. California 100 is an initiative focused on identifying and uplifting transformative ideas, people, and projects through research and engagement that accelerate progress towards a shared vision of California’s future over the next century, the Design Lab will host six hybrid experiences between April 13 – May 25, 2022.

Taking place in the Design Lab’s state of the art new home, the Design and Innovation Building, a series of panels, talks, and participatory design sessions will be led by an extraordinary group of California thought leaders who reflect diversity by region and industry, and the perspectives of communities who have been historically marginalized or excluded. Attendees can plan to learn more about, and actively co-create, around the following topics:

• Alternative Transportation Futures
• Climate Risk Reduction and Technology
• Housing Justice and Design
• Transborder Regions and Immigrant Integration
• Future Prospects in Health Equity and Tech Innovation
• The Future of Work and Higher Education

This series is sponsored by the Burnham Center for Community Advancement, San Diego Supercomputer Center, and Qualcomm Institute. Session are open and free to the public.

**If you are needing ASL services for the event, please contact ops@dlab.ucsd.edu.