Accessibility and Digital Mental Health: Considerations for More Accessible and Equitable Mental Health Apps

John Bunyi; Kathryn E Ringland; Stephen M Schueller

doi:10.3389/fdgth.2021.742196

Accessibility and Digital Mental Health: Considerations for More Accessible and Equitable Mental Health Apps

Front Digit Health. 2021 Sep 29:3:742196. doi: 10.3389/fdgth.2021.742196. eCollection 2021.

Authors

John Bunyi¹, Kathryn E Ringland², Stephen M Schueller^{1

3}

Affiliations

¹ Department of Psychological Science, University of California, Irvine, Irvine, CA, United States.
² Computational Media Department, University of California, Santa Cruz, Santa Cruz, CA, United States.
³ Department of Informatics, University of California, Irvine, Irvine, CA, United States.

Abstract

Digital mental health is often touted as a solution to issues of access to mental health care. However, there has been little research done to understand the accessibility of digital mental health, especially for those with disabilities. In this piece, we define accessibility as it relates to mental health apps, describe the current state of accessibility in the digital world broadly and in mental health apps more specifically, outline why accessibility matters in mental health apps, and identify future steps to better incorporate accessibility into research and development of mental health apps.

Keywords: access; accessibility; digital mental health; disability; mHealth; mental health.