Work

'This is eye opening:' Raising Awareness of Home Care Workers' Health and Wellbeing via Activity Tracking

Year: 2025

Type: article

Abstract: Home care workers (HCWs) are an important group of frontline workers that deliver essential at-home care services to enable older adults to age in place. Despite their importance in patient care, research has shown that HCWs are an overlooked and undervalued workforce: HCWs work in isolated conditions, are paid low wages, experience high levels of stress and burnout, and more. As a result, despite being motivated to try and be healthy, this essential workforce suffers from poor physical and mental health outcomes. This paper combines data from focus groups, interviews, and a month-long field study with HCWs to investigate the feasibility and utility of using activity tracking devices to provide HCWs with fine-grained awareness and insights into daily activities that affect their health and wellbeing. We explore HCWs' reactions to both their individual and collective data, discussing their efforts towards positive behavior change, but also highlighting systemic and occupational factors that may limit HCWs' agency and control over their own activities. Finally, we discuss the potential for HCWs' collective data to raise awareness about their working conditions and provide data-driven evidence to aid advocacy efforts towards improved policies, better wages, or greater protections for this vital workforce.

Source: Proceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction

DOI: 10.1145/3757530