Using ubiquitous computing for preventing risk behaviors based on smart contexts through mobile devicesan approach for nutrition and sexually transmitted diseases

Resumen

Several methods have been utilized recently to educate people and communities about topics related to worldwide health issues, among these, nutrition and sexual behaviors. In the area of nutrition, excessive weight and obesity are problems associated with a variety of health issues. These problems are directly related to the current lifestyle of the population. People have fast paced lives, constantly on the run, with little time to devote to buying and preparing healthy meals. In addition, they receive limited education or information about nutrition. On the other hand, regarding sexual behaviors, advances in the development of information and communication technologies have facilitated social interrelationships, but also sexual contacts without appropriate preventive measures. This work explores how to develop educational mechanisms for promoting healthy behaviors, focusing on a target group and their context in two areas: 1) bad nutrition (related to obesity or being overweight), and 2) sexual transmitted infections, which were chosen due to their relevance and importance in the area of public health. The aim of this work is to investigate how ubiquitous computing could be useful in preventive health for these problems. Two research strategies were used. The first strategy corresponds to the software development, while the second is a methodology to validate results. The first strategy used was the iterative development of software. The second strategy to validate results was the design and creation strategy. Thus, through a combination of these methodologies, mobile applications and their software artifacts were created and then validated through interviews and quizzes. Four applications (UBIAPP, UBINUT, GEONUT and UBESAFE) were developed to address the issue of using mobile applications with preventive health messages as a part of two stages; the first stage consisted of the test applications (UBIAPP and UBINUT), while the second stage corresponded to the refined applications (GEONUT and UBESAFE). The first application to be developed was UBIAPP, which addressed the issue of STI and HIV prevention, focusing on testing preventive messages in a smart context with a group of sexually active men. The second application, UBINUT was designed for the prevention of risky behavior in relation to nutrition problems, considering the perception of the users when they receive a health message. After the testing of these initial applications, the third application, GEONUT was developed as the refined version of UBINUT and it included the addition of concepts of geofencing for the recognition of hot zones associated with places where users can make poor nutritional decisions, such as food courts, cafeterias, street food, etc. Finally, UBESAFE, the refined version of UBIAPP, was created to focus on testing and trying preventive messages in a smart context with a group of MSM, including a gamification approach for sharing data that was not present in the test application (UBIAPP). This refined mobile application considers the previous experience with the last three mobile applications (UBIAPP, UBINUT, and GEONUT) from an informatics point of view and also the experiences of each test carried out with each respective target group. The results of this work suggest that ubiquitous computing may be useful for alerting users with preventive and educational messages, especially when they are non-intrusive. The proposed applications are non-intrusive because: 1) the users themselves decide to install them; 2) they send messages that help users think about taking appropriate preventive measures; and 3) they work in the background without interfering with users unless a trigger situation is detected. Thus, this type of application could become an important tool in the complex task of promoting healthy behaviors in both areas: nutrition and sexual transmitted infections.