The term socio-ecological design is new to designers, even though, socio-ecological perspective is often used in public health research. It provides designers a theoretical framework to frame design opportunities and propose integrated systems level solutions. From such a perspective, there are five contexts or levels that are associated with socio-ecological aspects of people’s health: individual context, interpersonal context, organizational context, community context, and public policy context. At the individual level, choices may be based in people’s attitude, values, and intentions. At the interpersonal level, people’s choices may be influenced by relationships (e.g. family, friends, peers, and co-workers). At the organizational level, people’s choices may be affected by rules, policies, procedures, and incentives in organizations (e.g., schools, family support centers, and family health clinics). At the community level, people’s choices may reflect social norms, social networks, standards and practices. Finally, at the public policy level, people’s choices may be linked to government policies, regulations and laws at many levels (i.e., local, state, and federal).

I posit that socio-ecological design is useful to organize and strategize concerted design action for societal scale problems such as obesity prevention. I am exploring the theoretical implications of socio-ecological design with Kristin Hughes on the Fitwits research project in the School of Design at Carnegie Mellon University. http://www.fitwits.org 

Related publications

Hughes, K., Scupelli, P.,  Fidler, S., & McGaffey, A. (2010) Think, Make, Evaluate, (Evolve) : Designing participatory tools to better understand how to help physicians communicate with families about obesity. A case study in sustainable co-design. Challenges and Opportunities for Design Research, Education and Practice in the XXI Century. LeNS Conference, Bangalore, 29th September to 1st October 2010.