Innovative prototypes for cervical cancer prevention in low-income primary care settings: A human-centered design approach
Cervical cancer is currently the fourth most common cause of cancer-associated death worldwide. In Latin America and the Caribbean, the mortality rates are three times higher than in the United States, reflecting greater barriers to healthcare in low-income and middle-income countries. This shows that it is necessary to develop renewed forms of prevention that improves access to prevention programs, especially for women with low incomes. In this study, human-centered design (HCD) was utilised, which involved five stages: research, need synthesis, ideation and co-design process, prototyping and in-context usability testing. This resulted in the development of four prototypes: (1) ‘Encanto’: Delivery of cervical cancer prevention education during a manicure, (2) ‘No le des la espalda a la citologÃa’: A media-based education strategy, (3) An educational wireless queuing device in the waiting room, and (4) Citobot: an electronic device for cervical cancer early detection. These results show that HCD is useful for design-based prevention in the field of cervical cancer. However, longer-term evaluation is required in order to determine whether the prototypes will be used regularly, integrated into cervical cancer screening services and effectively improve access to screening in primary care.