This collaborative and user driven study aims to deploy virtually reality technology(VRT) to enhance social inclusionamong persons with MHD/SUD who belong to one of the most disadvantaged groups. They are marginalized when itcomes to education, employment, meaningful activity and social relations. The Norwegian Service User Plan, aregister on persons with MHD/SUD, shows that meaningful daily activities are the greatest challenge for thesepersons. The ability to be included in the society as regular citizens is one of the strongest desires and an indicator ofquality of life. According to recent research, lack of social inclusion among persons with MHD/SUD is both intrinsicand structural in nature, but there is no panacea to solve this problem. To a limited degree, VRT has been utilized intreating MHD/SUD, but little is known about the target groups behavior and attitudes towards VRT and how an ehealthsolution could be beneficial to avoid marginalization. The greatest challenge in our study is the possible lackof interest among the target group and their health care workers to use VRT as a tool to improve social inclusion. Wehave received support for the study from our two collaboration partners RIO - an user organisation and themunicipality of Hamar, that using VRT may be a possible "life turning tool" for persons with MHD/SUD. Further, VRTsare advancing rapidly and we might end up using outdated VRT until we have the results. To mitigate this we put anemphasis on the development of software and less on hardware and believe that the VRT we build will be genericand useful for any type of hardware. The anticipated results will have far reaching implications for the quality of lifeof persons with MHD/SUD including other marginalized groups. Providing a VRT may have positive effects on thedelivery of care to under served groups, and might further have economic implications with more resources areavailable to expand services to those in greatest need.
