This special issue analyzes the global rise of digital health technologies and identifies how they impact, both positively and negatively, inequities. It brings together diverse perspectives from academics, policy makers, practitioners and activists from around the world. Their contributions engage with empirical data and practical experiences from Africa (Ghana, Tanzania, Kenya, South Africa, Sierra Leone), Asia (India), Europe (Germany, Norway, the European Union), and North America (the United States and Canada). Taken together and individually, they critically interrogate the political dimensions that link digital technologies and health equity.
Introduction
Digital Technology and the Political Determinants of Health Inequities: Special Issue Introduction - Katerini Tagmatarchi Storeng, Sakiko Fukuda-Parr, Manjari Mahajan and Sridhar Venkatapuram
Research Articles
21st Century Capitalism and Innovation for Health - Susan K. Sell
Governing Artificial Intelligence in an Age of Inequality - Padmashree Gehl Sampath
Emerging Consensus on ‘Ethical AI’: Human Rights Critique of Stakeholder Guidelines - Sakiko Fukuda-Parr and Elizabeth Gibbons
From Ghana to India, Saving the Global South’s Mothers with a Digital Solution - Marine Al Dahdah
The Appropriated Body: Biometrics Regime, The Digital State and Healthcare in Contemporary India - Rajiv K. Mishra
Digital Health in East Africa: Innovation, Experimentation and the Market - Tom Neumark and Ruth J. Prince
Policy Insights
What’s Technology Got to Do With It? Power, Politics, and Health Equity Beyond Technological Triumphalism - Andrea A. Cortinois and Anne-Emanuelle Birn
The Too-Narrow Policy Debate: Lessons from Agricultural Biotechnology for Digital Technology - Manjari Mahajan
Mining the Data Oceans, Profiting on the Margins - Mary F. E. Ebeling
The Dangers of Data Colonialism in Precision Public Health - Kadija Ferryman
The Big Digital Contact Tracing Experiment - Antoine de Bengy Puyvallée and Katerini Tagmatarchi Storeng
COVID-Apps: Misdirecting Public Health Attention in a Pandemic - Susan Erikson
Algorithmic Bias and the (False) Promise of Numbers - Adam Moe Fejerskov
Practitioner Commentaries
Claiming Digital Technology for Health Equity: Early Lessons from Promising Practices in India - Jashodhara Dasgupta
Digital Health in Response to COVID-19 in Low- and Middle-income Countries: Opportunities and Challenges - Elizabeth A. Mitgang, Joaquin A. Blaya and Mickey Chopra
Avoiding the Road to Nowhere: Policy Insights on Scaling up and Sustaining Digital Health - Amnesty LeFevre, Sara Chamberlain, Neha S. Singh, Kerry Scott, Purnima Menon, Peter Barron, Rajani R. Ved and Asha George
