A new project from M4ID and University of Texas, Austin is combining public health concerns, with ritual design, and service design, to imagine better ways that front line health workers could serve patients.

M4ID has partnered with the University of Texas, and Bihar based partners, to research and better understand the psychological and cultural rituals that contribute to a behaviour.  This project takes a unique approach by combining scientific research methods with human-centered design strategies, leading to research that will inform the design of more effective service delivery and behavioral outcomes.

We are centering on rituals in this project in order to:

• Understand the role of individual motivation in how FLWs perceive high quality care
• Identify the cultural FLW rituals that can be harnessed to encourage high quality health service delivery, as well as those that pose a barrier to health-promoting behavior among FLWs
• Determine the environment that can reinforce ritualistic behavior in order to achieve long-lasting, sustainable behavior change and high quality health service behaviors

This project, led in part by Dr. Cristine Legare, is working on co-designing rituals for new solutions that help overcome barriers to good medical care. It is called RISE (Ritual to Improve Service-delivery and Empower health workers).