NetwellCASALA Research Featured at CHI 2026 in Barcelona
NetwellCASALA was delighted to contribute to the ACM Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI 2026), held recently in Barcelona, one of the world’s leading conferences in Human-Computer Interaction (HCI).
Dr. Julie Doyle, Principal Investigator of the SEURO Project at Dundalk Institute of Technology, made two significant contributions to the conference through the presentation of a full research paper and participation in a workshop focused on long-term engagement in digital health technologies.
Dr. Doyle presented the paper: “Factors Influencing Digital Health Engagement of Older Adults with Multimorbidity during a Longitudinal Trial”
The paper draws on six months of real-world usage data and qualitative findings from the SEURO Project trial of the ProACT digital health platform. The research explored how and why older adults with multimorbidity engage with self-management technologies over time.
The findings highlight that engagement with digital health technologies is highly dynamic and individual, shaped by factors including health status, everyday life context, motivation, and the availability of clinical support.
The work contributes important new insights into how digital health systems can better support sustained and meaningful engagement among older adults managing multiple chronic conditions.
The paper can be found here ACM Digital Library.
Dr. Doyle also contributed to the workshop "Engagement in Digital Health Interventions" with the submission: “Rethinking Engagement in Longitudinal Digital Health: A Use Case from Older Adults with Multimorbidity”
As part of the workshop, Dr. Doyle presented a use case based on more than a decade of experience designing, deploying, and trialling the ProACT platform with older adults living with multimorbidity across Europe.
The workshop contribution challenged the common assumption that engagement with digital health technologies should be frequent and consistent. Instead, it proposed that meaningful engagement is often episodic, adaptive, and purpose-driven, varying according to individuals’ health needs, life circumstances, and access to clinical support such as triage nurses.
The session also raised important questions for the digital health research community, including how episodic engagement should be understood and measured, the role of human support in sustaining engagement, and how evaluation frameworks should account for user-led reductions in technology use.
Reflecting on the conference, Dr. Doyle noted the value of connecting with international researchers and practitioners working on similar challenges in the design of long-term digital health interventions and meaningful user engagement.
The contributions presented at CHI 2026 further strengthen NetwellCASALA’s ongoing research into user-centred digital health technologies that support self-management, healthy ageing, and improved quality of life for older adults.