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ORIGINAL RESEARCH article

Front. Digit. Health

Sec. Health Communications and Behavior Change

Volume 7 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fdgth.2025.1436347

This article is part of the Research Topic AI for Health Behavior Change View all articles

Responsible Design of an AI System for Health Behavior Change -An Ethics Perspective on the Participatory Design Process of the STAR-C Digital Coach

Provisionally accepted

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

    The increased focus on the ethical aspects of Artificial Intelligence (AI) follows the increased use in society of data-driven analyses of personal information collected in the use of digital applications for various purposes that the individual is often not aware of. The purpose of this study is to explore the participatory design process of an AI-based digital coaching application for promoting health and to prevent cardiovascular diseases from a responsible design of AI systems perspective. The results include increased awareness of the value of participatory design in achieving value-based design of AI systems aimed at promoting health through behavior change, and the inclusion of social norms as a design material in the process. It was concluded that the relationship between the anticipated future users and the organization(s) or enterprises developing and implementing the health-promoting application is directing which values are manifested in the application.

    Keywords: Participatory Design, Responsible artificial intelligence, Human-Centered Artificial Intelligence, health behavior change, Digital Coach, social norms, Values, Ethics

    Received: 21 May 2024; Accepted: 10 Feb 2025.

    Copyright: © 2025 Lindgren, Lindvall and Richter Sundberg. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

    * Correspondence: Helena Lindgren, Umeå University, Umeå, Sweden

    Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.

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