A new path to address health disparities: how older Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander women use social media to enhance community health (Protocol)

Background: Digital health offers a fresh avenue to address health disparities experienced by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders. Despite the scant evidence about how Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders access and use health technology, the Australian government has prioritised research that uses technology to enable people to manage their health and promote better health outcomes. Older Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women are cultural leaders in their communities, enabling them to provide valuable insights about the safety and efficacy of health care messaging. However, no research has engaged older Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander, women as partners in digital health research.

Objective: This paper provides a protocol for co-designed translational research that privileges older Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander women's cultural expertise to design and test a framework for accessible, culturally safe and feasible digital health technologies.

Methods: This mixed-methods research project will use the collective impact approach, a user-centred, co-design methodology and yarning circles, a recognised Indigenous research methodology. A series of yarning circles with three different communities will elucidate enablers and barriers to access health information; co-create a framework clarifying what works and does not work for digital health promotion in their communities; and test the framework by co-creating three digital health information programs.

Conclusions: Privileging the cultural expertise of older Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women will provide a novel perspective and vital guidance that end users and developers can trust and rely upon to create and evaluate culturally safe and efficacious digital health promotion programs.