Join the Mailing List

Defining Digital Health: Recommended Definitions on Digital Health and Human Rights for Policy-Makers

Language matters, and how we define digital health can shape how we experience it. However, digital health stakeholders often define key terms in different ways. This can result in difficulties when policy-making, as deciding to use one definition may exclude others and therefore the varied experiences and understandings of the subject.

Language matters, and how we define digital health can shape how we experience it. However, digital health stakeholders often define key terms in different ways. This can result in difficulties when policy-making, as deciding to use one definition may exclude others and therefore the varied experiences and understandings of the subject.

Language matters, and how we define digital health can shape how we experience it. However, digital health stakeholders often define key terms in different ways. This can result in difficulties when policy-making, as deciding to use one definition may exclude others and therefore the varied experiences and understandings of the subject.

The Digital Health and Rights Project (DHRP) brings together international social scientists, human rights lawyers, health advocates, and networks of people living with HIV, to conduct research and advocate for rights-based digital governance in Colombia, Ghana, Kenya, Vietnam, and globally1. Since 2021, DHRP has conducted transnational participatory action research and community-engaged research with over 600 young adults and experts in Bangladesh, Colombia, Ghana, Kenya and Vietnam. DHRP currently hosts Community Advisory Teams in Colombia, Ghana, Kenya and Vietnam.

In this commentary, we draw on this research and ongoing engagement with the communities with whom we work to propose definitions that arise from our experience as a diverse, interdisciplinary consortium that engages with lived experience of communities as well as legal, advocacy and academic definitions. We note that definitions may evolve and change over time as our knowledge and experience of digital technologies also evolve, and will also vary across different contexts. The definitions we propose are therefore not static, but opportunities to engage in the way that communities are currently experiencing digital health.

Glossary Digital Health