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Paper short abstract:

This paper presents three successive attempts to develop health interventions based on the ASSA project on smartphones and ageing. One on menopause failed. One on social prescribing that might yet succeed. Finally, an intervention on hypertension in Trinidad is showing positive results.

Paper long abstract:

This paper explores several attempts to take the results of the ASSA project on the anthropology of smartphones and smart ageing and employ these for the direct benefit of people’s welfare through developing an anthropological alternative to conventional mHealth that we call - Smart From Below. An initial summary will be made of multiple such interventions before focusing on three I was personally involved in. The first example was an attempt with Pauline Garvey to use research on menopause to improve people’s knowledge and discussion of this process. I will discuss why this is needed and why our attempt to develop this failed. With the key issue becoming one of envisaged uptake. The second proposed intervention, also with Pauline Garvey, was the development of two Social Prescribing initiatives comprising digital compilations of social activities within a specific location. Activities that could be `prescribed’ as alternatives to the prescribing of medical interventions, for the treatment of conditions such as depression. I will explore why this has (so far) failed but might yet succeed. The third attempt was the development in collaboration with Sheba Mohammid of a strategy to lower hypertension in Trinidad and Tobago. In this case, the emphasis will be on the positive outcomes. The first intervention based on Facebook was more successful than envisaged and we are optimistic about a second intervention based on a game that we have jointly created for downloading to smartphones, whose results should be known by the time of the conference.