Collaborative Participation in Personalized Health through Mobile Diaries

Mobile and social media tools offer new opportunities for a more user centered, socially connected, and economically sustainable healthcare systems. A major focus of this chapter is to understand how to bring users to involve in their own everyday health management through mobile narratives, and new media as social platforms to incite social interaction in promoting healthier lifestyles. More in detail, the study discusses the utility of geo-located video diaries and social network, where the social interaction on the web and user-recorded video diaries create awareness and help subjects to self-reflect on their activities and aim to think for a health behavior change. The chapter experiences a focus project Locast Health Diary aims to provide a helpful set of tools for teen's risk at obesity to record their socio- psychological environment and everyday health routines through participatory workshops and evaluate the use of health diary tools for confronting obesity problems.