Date of Conferral

2023

Degree

Ph.D.

School

Health Services

Advisor

Christopher Miller

Abstract

African Americans are underrepresented and have limited access to health care in the United States due to systemic disparities. The purpose of this qualitative phenomenological study was to develop a better understanding of the relationship that African Americans have with the health care system and the way they interact with it as well as to examine the impacts of mobile health (mHealth) patient engagement applications and their impact on shaping health experiences amongst millennial African Americans. Research questions addressed African American millennials’ perspectives on potential barriers to utilizing health care in the U.S. health care system as well as consideration of predisposed characteristics of the African American population and the impact of patient engagement applications in shaping access to health care. The Andersen behavioral model of health services was used as the conceptual framework. Data sets were developed using electronic surveys from a sample size of 16 African American millennials (defined as those born between 1981–1996) who attested to having interacted with the U.S. health care system within the last 6 months to 1 year. NVivo was used to analyze survey results and a word-based approach was used to identify themes (defined as commonly used words from responses). Results indicated that while some access limitations still exist, overall access to basic health care services was more readily available than specialty care services. Social change implications include encouraging a systemic shift to focus on implementing strategies that facilitate the use of technology as a catalyst to address this type of change in improving the access to and utilization of health care amongst African Americans.

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