2024.03 ~ 2024.05
Chuyin Li, Chun-Han Mei
The elderly are particularly vulnerable to increasingly frequent and severe heatwaves, facing higher risks of heat-related illnesses such as dehydration, heat stroke, and heart disease due to lower perspiration rates.
Traditional emergency responses often fail to meet their urgent needs or monitor their health effectively during extreme heat events, so real-time alerts, safety support, and situational information are crucial for their protection.
It serves as a hub for real-time emergency updates and health advisories, tailored to individual users and their specific needs. It also facilitates community support by allowing users to seek help from nearby volunteers during emergencies.
There’s no function for users to search specific articles and topics precisely and quickly.
Automatically send a help request when detecting health anomaly, or users can manually initiate an alert.
The assigned volunteer offer services like cooling shelter, basic supplies, and self-help measures.
Volunteers list their available supports such as cooling shelter, supplies, ventilation advice, and medical supports.
Volunteers view the list of users in need based on locations, needs, and available supports.
Volunteer keeps tracking on specific user’s real-time health data, helping them know what supports to provide precisely.
The Pacific Northwest experienced record-breaking heat waves in summer. The average daily maximum temperatures in Oregon, Washington, Idaho, Northern California, Western Nevada, and British Columbia were nearly 20°F hotter than the average temperature in the previous decade.
Heatwaves in some regions caused air temperature to reach a staggering 47°C (116°F), and got more severe due to greenhouse gas emissions during climate change.
We conducted secondary research to learn more about how the elderly people are specifically vulnerable population in the extreme heat, identifying how high temperature negatively impacts on them, what heat-related symtoms there normally are, and how to deal with the emergency.
Some senior people are not familiar with technology, when they stay at home in summer, they tend to stay disconnect with others and lack rapid supports while feeling uncomfortable during heatwaves.
During natural disasters and emergencies, it is hoped to inform the general public in the community to enhance emergency response, and provide volunteers with a comprehensive process and guidelines to help those in need, especially vulnerable populations.
We also conducted several literature review and case studies to understand the importance and methods to incorporate volunteer concept into responding disasters and crisis.
The disaster management is more effective when community responses are integrated with formal emergency systems. Despite historical misconceptions about community panic, evidence now reveals that communities typically become more cohesive and self-organize to meet local needs during disasters.
While the benefits of using volunteers in emergency response are clear, there are limitations and concerns to consider.
To address these concerns and enhance community responses during emergencies, our mobile application integrates spontaneous volunteerism with specific features aimed at encouraging active participation
Sending tailored messages to users near an emergency, to encourage immediate prosocial actions by building a connection and evoking empathy.
Upon accepting a help request, volunteers receive detailed information about the emergency, enabling volunteers to prepare adequately.
Information include the situation, needed assistance, critical health information about the user, and safety guidelines.
Informs volunteers about the presence and actions of other volunteers nearby, leveraging social influence to encourage participation.
Being aware of other active volunteers provides a sense of support and backup in case the situation worsens or requires additional assistance.
There are already other working cases that utilizes volunteers in emergency response, such as myResponder. MyResponder is an APP developed by the Singapore Civil Defence Force (SCDF), utilizing crowd-sourcing to enhance basic life support services for out-of-hospital cardiac arrests (OHCA) victims.
Face tracking can’t accurately determine the right symptom and heat illness the user has. For example, sweating and paleness aren’t exactly related to heat illness. And some symptoms like headache, vomiting, and dehydration can’t be monitored by face tracking robot.
So we modify the idea to Voice Assistant that can regularly check on the user’s health status by prompting questions, such as “Is there any discomfort or symptoms? Are you feeling dizzy or having a headache?” And before the heatwaves come, it will send audio real-time alerts, reminding users to get hydrated.
Afterwards, we mapped out critical features and navigations in each device based on user needs. And how HelpMate app, smart wearable, and voice assistant are connected and interacting with each other.
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When the heat illness and fall are detected, smart wearable automatically sends an immediate alert to the emergency services and pre-designated contacts and registered volunteers nearby.
When heat related illnesses are about to happen, the emergency response app automatically or manually send help requests by red button, with recommended supports and cooling advisories below.
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