From Perception to Practice: How Community Engagement Shapes Adoption of Drone-Supported Healthcare In Rural East Tennessee

Background & Purpose

Rural communities experience persistent barriers to meaningful healthcare, including transportation limitations and geographic isolation. As one participant noted, “lack of resources would be a huge thing for me, it's like we're last on the list to get anything.” Emerging technologies offer a promising strategy to improve accessibility but are not consistently received as solutions by the communities they aim to serve. Implementation efforts often prioritize technological feasibility over the lived experiences of inequity and fragmented systems shaping public acceptance.

We present findings from an NSF-funded initiative examining perceptions of utilizing AI-supported drone healthcare delivery in East Tennessee. This study examines how rural residents interpret drone-supported healthcare and how community engagement influences acceptability in practice.

Methods

Two focus groups were conducted in rural East Tennessee. Data were analyzed using thematic analysis guided by Social Determinants of Health and sociotechnical frameworks, with attention to how participants constructed meaning around emerging healthcare technologies.

Results

Findings reveal that perceptions of drone technology are shaped through context, trust, and engagement. Residents initially associated drones with surveillance, military use, and loss of control. Primary concerns emanated regarding privacy, safety, and unintended consequences. As one participant stated, “once we start down this path, we have to be prepared for the consequences that it may be used negatively...”

Participant framing shifted when drones were discussed as tools for addressing barriers to healthcare access. Residents described increased openness when drones were connected to concrete needs such as medication delivery, emergency response, and mobility limitations. This pattern reflects emerging technology to be conditionally accepted only where support aligned with lived experiences of unmet needs.

Trust remained central across discussions. Participants emphasized that acceptance depended less on the technology itself and more on who implemented it. As one participant noted, “Knowing who is operating the drones and having trusted local organizations involved would make people more comfortable.” These findings demonstrate that successful adoption is shaped through intentional engagement embedded within existing systems of trust.

Conclusions & Implications

Results demonstrate that community engagement actively reshapes how emerging healthcare technologies are understood prior to implementation. Participants shifted their association of drones as instruments of surveillance to recognizing their potential as tools for improving healthcare access. These findings position community-engaged research as a mechanism for change that informs how technological innovations can be ethically introduced into practice.

Implications for practice include the need for demonstration-based engagement, partnership with trusted local organizations, and implementation strategies that reflect community priorities. This work contributes to social work research by illustrating how participatory processes can directly shape the integration of emerging technologies in ways that are equitable and responsive to marginalized communities.