This one-year planning grant, a collaboration between Arizona State University, Worcester Polytechnic Institute, and the Birthworkers of Color Collective (BCC), investigates technology usage in a community of birthworkers in Long Beach, CA to imagine how smart technologies could improve the collection, quality and accuracy of data that is collected through the Los Angeles Mommy and Baby (LAMB) survey. This survey critically influences strategies addressing perinatal issues faced by different LA communities. Despite the importance of LAMB survey data in shaping public health policy and the allocation of resources, the survey currently lags more than two years in publishing survey results, and fails to capture data from vulnerable populations. Important research questions to be addressed include: What are BCC doulas’ everyday technology practices? and How can a more diverse practitioner population contribute to the production of a less biased and more secure data collection system? The questions asked in this planning grant aim to 1) document the process of understanding and integrating community partner needs into smart technology design, 2) increase knowledge about mitigating algorithmic biases in synthetic learning and 3) improve the security and trustworthiness of data collection in vulnerable populations.

This project addresses important social and technical dimensions to examine approaches for improving birth outcomes and follow-on care for vulnerable communities. The team takes a multidisciplinary approach to address critical issues including design and assessment of community-based research methods, integrated human and computer systems, while also taking into account the ethics of AI and process-based systems. The proposed planning activities include facilitating three workshops with the BCC doulas to develop trust in the researchers and the integrity of the research process; examine technological systems and infrastructures already in use with BCC and determine technology behaviors; and introduce relevant smart technologies to co-develop an understanding of how the doulas’ field expertise can minimize data collection discrepancies.