Issue link: https://www.e-digitaleditions.com/i/1501973
Illinois Medicine | 19 D Smartphone-Assisted Research DR. KARNIK'S INTEREST IN TECHNOLOGY-BASED INTERVENTIONS began while he was earning a PhD in sociology in the 1990s. His adviser was looking at the human side of human-computer interaction in the Digital Libraries Initiative, a basic research initiative launched in the late 1980s to advance the means to collect, store, organize and access information in digital form via communication networks. "My adviser started schooling me on what affected the human factors in technology use—things like gender differences and how differently abled people used the library," says Karnik. "For example, were computer stations too high for people in wheelchairs?" In 2000, Karnik began working with unhoused individuals and noted the importance of going out into the community. "If the goal is prevention, we need to meet these people where they live—literally and figuratively," he says. "We were trying to get them to come into the clinic for psychiatric care. But most never came because, without a permanent place to live, it was difficult to connect with them by phone to schedule an appointment. In addition, many didn't have the money to keep their phone plans active. So I started to think about how we could use smartphone technology to track and develop tools that would increase their treatment engagement. With their consent, we gave them smartphones with unlimited data plans and tracked aspects of their use—including location, app usage and Wi-Fi connectivity. "One thing we learned from the study was that young people who don't have a permanent home often stay in one or a few places when they're experiencing severe depression or PTSD. And just like those who have houses, they would try to stay longer at a shelter or in other places where they felt safe. This was the first time that this information has been reported about that population." The results of this research were recently submitted for publication in a scholarly journal and are under peer review. P H O T O : D I A N E S M U T N Y