International Development

 Technology to mediate survival needs and social inclusion
 Contact: Jahmeilah Roberson

We cannot ignore that marginalized communities, such as the homeless, are users of digital and traditional technologies in urban settings. This research is an exploration of issues surrounding the ecology of digital technologies owned and used by the homeless in Los Angeles County. We have undertaken an ethnographic investigation to further our understanding of the role that digital technologies play in the lives of the homeless. By examining the social practices surround their use of technology we have identified themes that explain the role digital technologies play in mediating the different social lives of the homeless.
Grants: Faculty Mentor Program Fellowship Award, Cultural Diversity Grant, Intel PaPR@UCI Seed Grant
 

Publications:
 
 

Information access, sharing, and understanding for health care
Contact: Jahmeilah Roberson

Despite the heath issues closely associated with homelessness and poverty, the primary need for most homeless people is to survive life on the streets by finding food and shelter. Healthcare, while important, is often secondary. The lack of control over housing and diet often leads to these health problems within the homeless community and contributes to making them extremely difficult to treat and control. Homeless people often suffer from multiple illnesses where coordinating healthcare resources and obtaining health care information play the key roles in the disease management process.
The health care needs surrounding chronic diseases are a huge challenge for homeless people since medication, diet, and basic living interact in the course of disease management. The plan is to conduct a field study in a homeless health organization to examine the barriers and needs for homeless and poverty stricken to obtain sufficient health care information and to explore opportunities to design and implement technological interventions to help both the homeless and the health care organizations to engage in more effective health care practice.

 VoiceList: Audio-based User-generated Content for Socio-economic Development
Contact: Nithya Sambasivan

The recent move towards user-generated content in social media has resulted in the proliferation of online content production services such as wikis, blogs, and photo sharing websites. One of the most successful technologies in this realm is online classifieds services, such as Craigslist. This service allows users to post advertisements, such as rentals, jobs, consumer goods, tickets, automobiles, along with the means to contact the poster of the advertisement. Such user-driven websites allow anyone with access to the technology to create and edit content, for free.