Bringing Back Trust

Trusting healthcare, a bigger issue than we think

Trust within healthcare has been a large topic over the years. As a studio we have learned a lot about the importance that trust plays on an individual and their overall health. This is also a large factor in my partner and I's (Luz Upegui) design initiative for our project. How has trust been derailed in the past, and how can we help communities regain trust and therefore create a healing environment?

A large issue plaguing areas of high unemployment and areas with high percentages of the African American or Hispanic population is the lack of trust they have in their care providers. This lack of trust has been reinforced in the past by unethical providers and practitioners who don't understand the lifestyles of those they are treating as well as don't have their best interests in mind. One instance we learned of in class was the Tuskegee Studies. These were very unethical studies in which African American participants were told they would be treated for "bad blood". Many of these individuals already had syphilis, but instead of being treated with penicillin, they were instead left untreated and studied. This unjust study went on for many years until it was shut down. It is instances like this in our past that have created this mistrust we still see today with healthcare providers. So how can we regain the trust? While the question is simple to ask, the answer isn't simple at all. The reason I am diving into this touchy subject is because of how important this issue is in many large cities as well as to our design projects this semester.

Many of our studio projects this semester have been focused around community health and attempting to reach out in the west side of the Chicago to help the members of those communitys access better health. The issue that my group as well as many other groups in our studio have come across is: How do you help a community who might not trust the imiplementations that you are putting forth? Earlier in the semseter my partner and I had an initiative to design 4 urgent care centers in the Lawndale area that would then be connected via a transport system. After further evaluation of our design we realized that this initiative might on the surface seem like a good idea, but would it be a good idea for the Lawndale area? We came to the conclusion that due to past medical expereinces or un-realized bias's that individuals in the area might not use this type of design. Once we looked back on the design we realized that what works for one area might not work for another.

To put it best, we realized we were looking at the area of Lawndale as a google view site map. We could see what were roads, houses, churches, and transit lines, but what we weren't seeing from google maps were the micro elements that make up the community. Sometimes you can't look at everything so analytically and it helps to take a step back to understand the entire holistic view of the community. Needless to say we kept the main idea of having multiple locations for the community to seek healthcare, but altered the idea to better help the community members. We feel that our idea of mobile healthcare is allowing healthcare to seep into the community.

I think this is HUGE issue that designers face these days. Sometimes we get lost in the areas that we are from or the downtown city centers that we learn about and we forget that there are many different community typologies. As a designer it is important to design not for what you think you would go to, but instead what the members of the community you are designing for would go to. After taking this studio I really do believe that all students should have the opportunity to design for underprivileged communities. It is a realm that not all of us see. I am even from a small rural town that has a very large poor population, but my time here at U of I has taken me away from that, both in good ways and bad. In good ways, I was fortunate enough to get a great education and am a better designer, but my time away sometimes allows my mind to forget how the other half lives. I know of classmates that have never experienced how the other half lives. Learning to design for other types of communities makes you a better designer, and I think a better individual.

Even though we have changed our design we still have a lot of obstacles that we must design over to make our implementation successful. With a mobile healthcare system comes the use of semi-trucks as well as stations for these trucks to plug into. We realized after our Mid-review that a fleet of generic white semi trucks traveling around the community might be extremely intimidating to individuals. This sounds like such a common sense line item, but when you haven't designed for these types of communities before you don't tend to think this way. We are now in the process of designing both the trucks and the stations to fit into the community. We are hoping that by branding the trucks in a community centric way that the healthcare that they provide will be more trusted amongst the community members. We don't have the perfect answer to the issue, but we hope our design could potentially be a way to start breaking down the barrier's of mistrust.

Here are some articles that I found about the Tuskegee Study if you are interested. Also an article on how members of a similar community feel in Memphis, TN.

https://www.cdc.gov/tuskegee/timeline.htm

https://www.christianitytoday.com/thisisourcity/7thcity/faith-healing.html

Photo Credit: https://www.google.com/search?q=trust&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiHkoOUg7_aAhVL5YMKHXebAYgQ_AUICigB&biw=1439&bih=739#imgrc=JGbkIhg57GQ1GM: