Design of a Culturally-Informed Virtual Human for Educating Hispanic Women about Cervical Cancer

Significant health disparities exist between Hispanics and the general US population, complicated in part by communication, literacy, and linguistic factors. There are few available Spanish-language interactive, technology-driven health education programs that engage patients who have a range of health literacy levels. We describe the development of an interactive virtual patient educator for educating and counseling Hispanic women about cervical cancer and human papillomavirus. Specifically, we describe the iterative design methodology and rationale, usability evaluation, and pilot testing of the system with Hispanic women in a rural community in Florida. The pilot study findings provide preliminary evidence of the feasibility of the proposed patient education approach. The proposed application and the lessons learned will prove beneficial for future work targeted towards different cultural populations.