Digital health, gender and health equity: invisible imperatives

Abstract

A growing body of evidence shows the use of digital technologies in health—referred to as eHealth, mHealth or ‘digital health’—is improving and saving lives in low- and middle-income countries. Despite this prevalent and persistent narrative, very few studies examine its effects on health equity, gender and power dynamics. This journal supplement addresses these invisible imperatives by going beyond traditional measures of coverage, efficacy and cost-effectiveness associated with digital health interventions, to unpack different experiences of health workers and beneficiaries. The collection of papers presents findings from a cohort of implementation research projects in Africa, Asia, Latin America and the Middle East, and two commentaries offer observations from learning-oriented evaluative activities across the entire cohort. The story emerging from this cohort is comprised of three themes: (i) digital health can positively influence health equity; (ii) gender and power analyses are essential; and (iii) digital health can be used to strengthen upward and downward accountability. These findings, at the individual project level and at the level of the cohort, provide encouraging recommendations on how to approach the design, implementation and evaluation of digital health interventions to address the Sustainable Development Goals agenda of leaving no one behind.