Perspectives of Hispanic and Latinx Community Members on AI-Enabled mHealth Tools: Qualitative Focus Group Study

Mobile health (mHealth) tools have the potential to reduce the burden of chronic conditions that disproportionately affect Hispanic and Latinx communities; however, digital divides in the access to and use of health technology suggest that mHealth has the potential to exacerbate, rather than reduce, these disparities.

A key step toward developing health technology that is accessible and usable is to understand community member perspectives and needs so that technology is culturally relevant and appropriately contextualized. In this study, we aimed to examine the perspectives of Hispanic and Latinx community members in Washington State about mHealth.

We recruited English- and Spanish-speaking Hispanic or Latinx adults to participate in web-based focus groups through existing community-based networks across rural and urban regions of Washington State. Focus groups included a presentation of narrative slideshow materials developed by the research team depicting mHealth use case examples of asthma in children and fall risk in older adults. Focus group questions asked participants to respond to the case examples and to further explore mHealth use preferences, benefits, barriers, and concerns. Focus group recordings were professionally transcribed, and Spanish transcripts were translated into English. We developed a qualitative codebook using deductive and inductive methods and then coded deidentified transcripts using the constant comparison method. The analysis team proposed themes based on review of coded data, which were validated through member checking with a community advisory board serving Latino individuals in the region and finalized through discussion with the entire research team.

Between May and September 2023, we conducted 8 focus groups in English or Spanish with 48 participants. Focus groups were stratified by language and region and included the following: 3 (n=18, 38% participants) Spanish urban groups, 2 (n=14, 29% participants) Spanish rural groups, 1 (n=6, 13% participants) English urban group, and 2 (n=10, 21% participants) English rural groups. We identified the following seven themes: (1) mHealth is seen as beneficial for promoting health and peace of mind; (2) some are unaware of, unfamiliar with, or uncomfortable with technology and may benefit from individualized support; (3) financial barriers limit access to mHealth; (4) practical considerations create barriers to using mHealth in daily life; (5) mHealth raises concern for overreliance on technology; (6) automated mHealth features are perceived as valuable but fallible, requiring human input to ensure accuracy; and (7) data sharing is seen as valuable for limited uses but raises privacy concerns. These themes illustrate key barriers to the benefits of mHealth that communities may face, provide insights into the role of mHealth within families, and examine the appropriate balance of data sharing and privacy protections.

These findings offer important insights that can help advance the development of mHealth that responds to community values and priorities.