‘Should the World Health Organization (WHO) intervene on social networks and other organic platforms that are providing health information? And, if so, how?’
These were some of the questions raised during a webinar presented by the Global Health Centre at the Graduate Institute Geneva in coordination with the Digital Health and Rights Project on 22nd November.
Project researchers and participants presented their findings while raising important questions around the role that the organized health community can play in regulating organic digital health content. Their findings were from a transnational participatory action research study into young adults’ experiences with digital health in Bangladesh, Colombia, Ghana, Kenya and Vietnam.
The participants also offered ‘policy recommendations and good practices to help challenge structural inequalities and meet the needs of young people in their diversity based on the results of their work.’
Participants called on WHO to update its ‘definition of digital health to include Google and social networks as digital health platforms, which could then enable the organization to evaluate the health content on these platforms and support local health agencies doing the same.’
But this also raised another significant question: “If an institution like WHO was to come in, how would that change the dynamics? It could potentially influence the way people use social media to create this type of [health] content.”
The following three major topics were discussed in the webinar:
Maintaining Basic Standards of Digital Health Content
Participants from Savana Signatures recommended that ‘WHO works from a distance, perhaps providing supervisory support and ensuring that certain basic standards are maintained, while not interfering directly with the content creators on the ground.’
They recommended that for example, ‘WHO could communicate with large tech companies about the need for relevant sexual health information to get out to youth, including more explicit information that may, at first glance, appear to violate community standards on some social platforms.’
The issue of regulation was also raised, ‘less as a means to control the flow of information on social networks than to ensure that people accessing the information on these networks can feel safe.’
Participants recommended leveraging the direct involvement of young people and the communities who use these platforms to come up with data protection mechanisms so that people can trust the platforms they are on.
These regulations could include rules around the use of data, so that if a person is being asked to provide information about his or her sexual orientation or identity, there is an understanding of to whom that information is going and how it will be used.
Digital Transformation
The Digital Health and Rights Project, overseen by the Graduate Institute’s Sara Davis, came about as a result of the transformation of the world’s health systems by technology.
It was highlighted how global agencies are forming partnerships with big tech companies while, at the same time, there have been a lot of concerns raised by United Nations human rights experts and scholars about threats to privacy, non-discrimination and the threat of potential privatization of public services.
The project research was conducted in five countries and has so far included 174 young adults between the ages of 18 and 30, in addition to 83 key informant interviews. The report centered on efforts in Ghana, Kenya and Vietnam, and teased the results coming out of Bangladesh and Colombia, where the team just finished the fieldwork.
Empowering Access to Younger Populations
As per the report, ‘Google came up in a number of focus group discussions and some key informant interviews, along with social media and WhatsApp, as one of the most important ways in which people find information, a community, and safe spaces to engage and address some of the concerns that they had but did not want to address by going to health facilities where they might feel judged’.
A second finding highlighted the fact that a lot of inequalities seen offline continue to play a role in the online space. This could mean individuals not having the funds to purchase needed technologies, or experiencing censorship, violence or harm in the online sphere.
Issues of surveillance and regulation also came out as concerns in the study.
Digital health literacy and empowerment was also emphasized, as well as having a voice in policy making and calling on health officials to bring young people into conversations as champions on social media.
(With inputs from multiple sources)
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