Graduate Studies

Design for Health (MDes)

Ruslan Hétu

MRP: Destigmatizing Spaces: Humanity during a time of crisis...

Opioid-related stigma represents the greatest barrier to addressing the opioid-overdose crisis in Canada. This research project explores the design and implementation of a fictional probe as a means to engage meaningfully with stigmatized populations in complex health contexts to contribute to a design for health process.

“For the past decade, Canada has been in and continues to be in a public health emergency. The opioid-overdose crisis has led to thousands of deaths and the death toll continues to worsen. There is a call for more research to explore speculative methods in health as they present themselves as a meaningful way to radically re-imagine healthcare. Therefore, there is a need for tools that allow researchers and designers to navigate the future of complex healthcare situations with those directly impacted by the health policies. This project was designed to explore the use of design fiction as a tool to engage meaningfully with vulnerable populations in stigmatized environments to develop empathy and elevate unheard voices.”