Local Air Quality Issues and Research Priorities Through the Lenses of Chilean Experts: An Ontological Analysis.

Air pollution problems can be large, complex, and ill-structured. They can vary from location to location and combine many complex components: urban expansion, increasing vehicles and industrial emissions, biomass burning, geographic and meteorological conditions, cultural aspects, and economic effects. However, the existing research, accumulated knowledge, and local research priorities are spread over many disciplines and lack a systematic mapping to help manage and develop new strategies for researchers and policy makers. Ontological analysis can be used as a tool to capture this complexity through simple natural-language descriptions and a structured terminology. We describe the development of an ontological framework for "Air Quality Management in Chile" and its application to evaluate the current state of the research. The process was based on focus groups and validated by a panel of multidisciplinary experts. We used the developed framework to highlight the topics that have been heavily emphasized, lightly emphasized, or overlooked in the Chilean research. The framework developed can help researchers, practitioners, and policy makers systematically navigate the domain and provide the opportunity to correct blind spots by enabling more informed hypotheses that deal with air quality issues at a national level. We believe that applying this same process to different countries will yield different results (due to differences in local knowledge and experience). The framework presented could be used to evaluate other important stakeholders (government, media, NGOs, etc.), which will provide a complete picture of how local societies deal with air quality issues at different levels. Additionally, local government institutions will benefit from this analysis by improving funding allocation and opening new research opportunities to improve the distribution of the local body of knowledge. Integr Environ Assess Manag 2021;17:273-281. © 2020 SETAC.

Ontological Review of Persuasion Support Systems (PSS) for Health Behavior Change through Physical Activity.

Persuasion Support Systems (PSS) for health behavior change can play an important role in promoting health and well-being through physical activity. It is an emerging application at the crossroad between information systems, persuasion, and healthcare. We propose an ontology to systematically and systemically describe the construct of PSS for health behavior change. The ontology deconstructs the construct into its constituent dimensions and elements, and assembles them into a complete, parsimonious description of the same. We then map the corpus of literature on PSS for health behavior change through physical activity onto the ontology. The resulting ontological map highlights the research topics that are highly- and lightly-emphasized, as well as those with little or no emphasis. It illuminates the landscape of research in the corpus; it highlights biases in emphases that can help and hinder the advancement of the corpus. It can be used to develop a roadmap for future research.

An ontology of and roadmap for mHealth research.

PURPOSE: Mobile health or mHealth research has been growing exponentially in recent years. However, the research on mHealth has been ad-hoc and selective without a clear definition of the mHealth domain. Without a roadmap for research we may not realize the full potential of mHealth. In this paper, we present an ontological framework to define the mHealth domain and illuminate a roadmap. METHODS: We present an ontology of mHealth. The ontology is developed by systematically deconstructing the domain into its primary dimensions and elements. We map the extent research on mHealth in 2014 onto the ontology and highlight the bright, light, and blind/blank spots which represent the emphasis of mHealth research. FINDINGS: The emphases of mHealth research in 2014 are very uneven. There are a few bright spots and many light spots. The research predominantly focuses on individuals' use of mobile devices and applications to capture or obtain health-related data mostly to improve quality of care through mobile intervention. CONCLUSIONS: We argue that the emphases can be balanced in the roadmap for mHealth research. The ontological mapping plays an integral role in developing and maintaining the roadmap which can be updated periodically to continuously assess and guide mHealth research.

Envisioning Precision Healthcare Informatics: A Unified Framework.

We present a unified framework for envisioning precision healthcare informatics (PHI). The framework, presented as a high-level ontology, deconstructs PHI into six dimensions derived from the informatics and healthcare disciplines-the structure, function, and semiotics of informatics, and the stakeholders, care, and value of precision healthcare. Each dimension is articulated as a taxonomy of its constituent elements. Thus, the framework encapsulates the combinatorial complexity of PHI and can be used to describe its 37,800 potential components in natural English. The framework will help envision PHI systematically, systemically, an symmetrically in contrast to the often simplified, selective, and skewed approaches. The framework can be used to map the state-of-the-research, -practice, and -policy on PHI, discover the gaps within and between the states, and develop a roadmap for the future. It can be scaled and extended as PHI evolves by adding dimensions, and extending/refining the taxonomies.

China's National Health Policies: An Ontological Analysis.

The health care system in China is facing a multitude of challenges owing to the changing demographics of the country, the evolving economics of health care, and the emerging epidemiology of health as well as diseases. China's many national health care policies are documented in Chinese text documents. It is necessary to map the policies synoptically, systemically, and systematically to discover their emphases and biases, assess them, and modify them in the future. Using a logically constructed ontology of health care policies based on the common bodies of knowledge as a lens, we map the current policies to reveal their 'bright', 'light', and 'blind/blank' spots. The ontological map will help (a) develop a roadmap for future health care policies in China, and (b) compare and contrast China's health care policies with other countries'.

National Healthcare Policies in Chile: An Ontological Meta-Analysis.

We present an ontological meta-analysis of the national healthcare policies in Chile. Using a logically constructed ontology based on the common body of knowledge as a lens, we map the 39 key policies. The ontological map provides a synoptic, systematic, and systemic view of the policies, and highlight their emphases and biases.