title: A reusable framework for health counseling dialogue systems based on a behavioral medicine ontology.
abstract: Automated approaches to promoting health behavior change, such as exercise, diet, and medication adherence promotion, have the potential for significant positive impact on society. We describe a theory-driven computational model of dialogue that simulates a human health counselor who is helping his or her clients to change via a series of conversations over time. Applications built using this model can be used to change the health behavior of patients and consumers at low cost over a wide range of media including the web and the phone. The model is implemented using an OWL ontology of health behavior change concepts and a public standard task modeling language (ANSI/CEA-2018). We demonstrate the power of modeling dialogue using an ontology and task model by showing how an exercise promotion system developed in the framework was re-purposed for diet promotion with 98% reuse of the abstract models. Evaluations of these two systems are presented, demonstrating high levels of fidelity to best practices in health behavior change counseling.
authors.affiliation: College of Computer and Information Science, Northeastern University, Boston, MA 02215, USA. bickmore@ccs.neu.edu
authors.forename: Timothy W
authors.initials: TW
authors.lastname: Bickmore
authors.forename: Daniel
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Schulman
authors.forename: Candace L
authors.initials: CL
authors.lastname: Sidner
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D001521:Behavior Therapy; D001524:Behavioral Medicine / Q000379:methods*; D003376:Counseling / Q000379:methods*; D005260:Female; D015438:Health Behavior; D006293:Health Promotion / Q000379:methods; D006801:Humans; D007407:Interviews as Topic; D008297:Male