The project is an examination of the barriers socially marginalized people experience in accessing digitalized health services. The project’s target group is people who use services at the intersection between drug use and homelessness, for instance homeless shelters, drop-in centres and drug consumption rooms.

Aim

The aim of the study is to examine user journeys of socially marginalized people in – and at the edge of – the digitalized health care system. .

Background

People at the intersection of homelessness and drug use are at increased risk of illness and mortality. At the same time, they experience significant barriers in relation to accessing health services. Moreover, digitalization poses an increasing problem for the target group’s access to public services. This may include challenges in relation to accessing digital identification, digital travel identification, mail from public services, and communication from public health services. Thus, digital exclusion and inequality in health are closely linked. However, there is a lack of knowledge about how digitalized health solutions are experienced from a citizens’ perspective. Such knowledge can help shed light on differences between the ideal ‘user journeys’ outlined in digitalization strategies and the real service journeys of socially marginalized citizens in digitalized healthcare solutions.

The study

The study consists of two main parts:

1. Qualitative interviews with citizens in and around social services such as homeless shelters and drop-in centres. 20 citizens and 10 employees are interviewed at relevant services. Interviews focus on participants’ experiences of using digitalized services, the challenges they experience in relation to contacts with the health care system as well as the solutions crafted at the local level at service offers or in municipalities.
2. Mapping the target group’s ‘service journeys’. A service journey (or user journey) is a mapping of the steps involved in individual’s interaction with a given product or service. The study employs a service journey approach to map how citizens’ user journeys towards health solutions are pieced together at the edge of the digitalized health care system, among others with support from a wide range of actors such as outreach nurses and employees at low-threshold services.

In addition to constituting an important methodological approach, service journeys constitute a central research output in the study. A visualization of the complex, often geographical journeys that characterize marginalized citizens’ use of digital health solutions is thus included in a final report of the project.

The project period is October 2023 to June 2025.

Cooperation

The project is carried out in close dialogue with relevant service providers and users of low-threshold services. In addition, the project collaborates with a graphic facilitator who will be in charge of the visual creation of user journeys

Funding

The project is supported by Helsefonden.