Our aim is to explore a process of ‘compassionate design’ for therapeutic digital interventions in collaboration with emerging adults who have childhood-onset chronic conditions. These young people have been shaped by unique experiences, facing life-long challenges and health inequities within the healthcare system—issues exacerbated by their underrepresentation and under-engagement in research. This project aims to provide new guidance and pragmatic strategies for sustainably engaging them in research across disciplines through our proposed ‘compassionate design’ practices, which center their health equity throughout the process. The design practices we propose will incorporate contemplative methods that foster individual and team reflexivity, along with exercises promoting both individual and interpersonal compassion. A key focus of this project is the involvement of these emerging adults as peer researchers, recognizing the immense value of their lived experience. This knowledge is regarded as equally important—if not more so in certain instances—than empirical or theoretical knowledge. By promoting equity in knowledge ownership and decision-making, we hope to reshape traditional research practices. Additionally, we aim to have the compassionate design process fill a considerable gap in understanding how compassion practices could benefit emerging adults with chronic conditions, and also guide a process of compassionately developing digital therapeutics.
Laurisa S. Dill Award
