The World Health Assembly (WHA)’s recent decision to extend the Global Strategy on Digital Health 2020-2025 until 2027, and to launch efforts to plan the next Global Strategy on Digital Health, marked an important commitment to improving health for all by accelerating the development and governance of digital health.
However, our new research report – one of the most extensive qualitative studies on this topic – finds that some of the young people who most need to be reached with digital health solutions in low- and middle-income countries (LMIC) are left behind, and face risks of misinformation, online abuse and discrimination. WHO and member states must use these findings to inform their work on governance, planning and prioritisation, or risk driving deeper health inequities and harms for those digital health most needs to reach.
In Ghana, Kenya and Vietnam, we found many young adults used web platforms (such as Google), social media platforms (such as Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, Twitter and YouTube), and social chat (such as WhatsApp, Zalo) to get health information, advice and peer support on sexual and reproductive health, HIV and Covid-19. The platforms brought clear benefits to young people, but also risks of censorship, abuse, stalking and other harms. These issues were largely not addressed by national laws and policies, and by global digital health policies such as the World Health Organization (WHO)’s Global Strategy on Digital Health 2020-2025.
The research was conducted using mixed qualitative methods and a transnational participatory action research approach in which communities of people living with HIV, as well as national civil society groups and human rights lawyers in Ghana, Kenya and Vietnam, participated in design of the study, data-gathering, analysis, and validation of the final results and recommendations. Our policy recommendations are outlined in a policy brief in English and Spanish.
We raised these concerns in an open letter to the director-general of WHO, Dr. Tedros, calling on WHO and other global health agencies to take action to protect young people from risks of harm when they seek health information online.
The study in Ghana, Kenya and Vietnam concludes the first phase of a multi-country study. The study continues in Bangladesh and Colombia, conducted in collaboration with social scientists at BRAC University and Universidad de los Andes, as well as civil society groups in both countries. The two universities also published their working paper based on desk review of laws and policies governing digital health in both countries, Digital Health and Rights in Bangladesh and Colombia.
We discussed the findings with researchers, social media influencers, health NGOs and an expert on sexual and reproductive health from WHO in a webinar, and the slides are below:
It was a pleasure to co-edit this special section of the Health and Human Rights Journal with Carmel Williams on “Big Data, Technology, Artificial Intelligence and the Right to Health”. It gathers a diverse group of anthropologists, human rights lawyers, tech researchers, rights activists, and UN policy officials to explore early thinking on this rapidly emerging field.
As Carmel and I wrote in our editorial, COVID-19 has forced many of us into a strange new intimacy with our phones and laptops: those of us in the elite with the privilege to work from home have virtually melded with our machines. Personally, I don’t think I’ve been farther than one room’s length from my smartphone since March 2020. So if we are now basically cyborgs…living “on the boundary between fact and fiction” (Haraway 1995), what use are 20th century human rights?
A bunch of smart people tackled this and other questions, ranging from the rights of children in the digital age, to the role of tech in human rights investigations, to the role of the private sector and UN agencies, to the possibilities for new forms of civil society and community engagement in the digital space. The issue is available for free download here.
The COVID-19 lockdown has proven economically devastating, and to enable people to move freely and start national economies moving also, many governments are exploring digital contact tracing. Mobile phone apps that track individual movements can enable real-time health surveillance and case management. However, once it exists, that data on health and individual movements can pose real threats for everyone—particularly for women and girls, and for marginalized and disfavored groups. Racing to embrace digital contact tracing without putting laws and policies in place to address the stigma surrounding the epidemic, and to protect the rights of those most marginalized, risks undermining the goal of epidemic control. Continue reading →
By Sara L. M. Davis, Kenechukwu Esom, Rico Gustav, Allan Maleche, and Mike Podmore
In 1994, when Health and Human Rights was launched by editor Jonathan Mann, it appeared-in print-in a very different world: one in which the internet had just been created, and could only be accessed through dial-up telephone lines paid for by the minute; cell phones were heavy, clunky, and unaffordable for most. Our thinking about health and human rights, formed before the digital age, must now advance to keep pace with its new risks and opportunities. Continue reading →
From 
Sara (Meg) Davis 