Digital Health Equity
Katharine Lawrence
Abstract
Digital health technologies have the potential to improve healthcare access, utilization, and experience for patients; at the same time, their development and use can reinforce, exacerbate, and even create health disparities. Applying a health equity lens to digital health innovations can help inform the equitable design and development of digital health tools. Specifically, areas of health equity impact that can be targeted in the development of a digital health technology include: the tool itself, including its design, technical development, integration into the healthcare environment, and evaluation; the technology’s relationship to various end-users, including individuals, tech proprietors and developers, and the larger healthcare system; and its impact on identified health and social determinant outcomes. Targeting one or more of these areas can help support the design, development, and deployment of digital health tools that actively work to reduce health disparities and promote health equity for socially disadvantaged patient populations. More research is needed to understand the full effect of digital health technology on health disparities, and to develop best practices for equity-centered digital health implementation and evaluation.