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Gender dynamics in digital health: overcoming blind spots and biases to seize opportunities and responsibilities for transformative health systems

Much remains to ensure that digital health affirms rather than retrenches inequality, including for gender. Drawing from literature and from the SEARCH projects in this supplement, this commentary highlights key gender dynamics in digital health, including blind spots and biases, as well as transfor...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: George, A S, Morgan, R, Larson, E, LeFevre, A
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Oxford University Press 2018
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6294040/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/30307517
http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/pubmed/fdy180
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author George, A S
Morgan, R
Larson, E
LeFevre, A
author_facet George, A S
Morgan, R
Larson, E
LeFevre, A
author_sort George, A S
collection PubMed
description Much remains to ensure that digital health affirms rather than retrenches inequality, including for gender. Drawing from literature and from the SEARCH projects in this supplement, this commentary highlights key gender dynamics in digital health, including blind spots and biases, as well as transformative opportunities and responsibilities. Women face structural and social barriers that inhibit their participation in digital health, but are also frequently positioned as beneficiaries without opportunities to shape such projects to better fit their needs. Furthermore, overlooking gender relations and focussing on women in isolation can reinforce, rather than address, women’s exclusions in digital health, and worsen negative unanticipated consequences. While digital health provides opportunities to transform gender relations, gender is an intimate and deeply structural form of social inequality that rarely changes due to a single initiative or short-term project. Sustained support over time, across health system stakeholders and levels is required to ensure that transformative change with one set of actors is replicated and reinforced elsewhere in the health system. There is no one size prescriptive formula or checklist. Incremental learning and reflection is required to nurture ownership and respond to unanticipated reactions over time when transforming gender and its multiple intersections with inequality.
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spelling pubmed-62940402018-12-21 Gender dynamics in digital health: overcoming blind spots and biases to seize opportunities and responsibilities for transformative health systems George, A S Morgan, R Larson, E LeFevre, A J Public Health (Oxf) Digital health in LMICs: Unpacking health equity and gender dimensions Much remains to ensure that digital health affirms rather than retrenches inequality, including for gender. Drawing from literature and from the SEARCH projects in this supplement, this commentary highlights key gender dynamics in digital health, including blind spots and biases, as well as transformative opportunities and responsibilities. Women face structural and social barriers that inhibit their participation in digital health, but are also frequently positioned as beneficiaries without opportunities to shape such projects to better fit their needs. Furthermore, overlooking gender relations and focussing on women in isolation can reinforce, rather than address, women’s exclusions in digital health, and worsen negative unanticipated consequences. While digital health provides opportunities to transform gender relations, gender is an intimate and deeply structural form of social inequality that rarely changes due to a single initiative or short-term project. Sustained support over time, across health system stakeholders and levels is required to ensure that transformative change with one set of actors is replicated and reinforced elsewhere in the health system. There is no one size prescriptive formula or checklist. Incremental learning and reflection is required to nurture ownership and respond to unanticipated reactions over time when transforming gender and its multiple intersections with inequality. Oxford University Press 2018-12 2018-10-11 /pmc/articles/PMC6294040/ /pubmed/30307517 http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/pubmed/fdy180 Text en © The Author(s) 2018. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of Faculty of Public Health. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted reuse, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
spellingShingle Digital health in LMICs: Unpacking health equity and gender dimensions
George, A S
Morgan, R
Larson, E
LeFevre, A
Gender dynamics in digital health: overcoming blind spots and biases to seize opportunities and responsibilities for transformative health systems
title Gender dynamics in digital health: overcoming blind spots and biases to seize opportunities and responsibilities for transformative health systems
title_full Gender dynamics in digital health: overcoming blind spots and biases to seize opportunities and responsibilities for transformative health systems
title_fullStr Gender dynamics in digital health: overcoming blind spots and biases to seize opportunities and responsibilities for transformative health systems
title_full_unstemmed Gender dynamics in digital health: overcoming blind spots and biases to seize opportunities and responsibilities for transformative health systems
title_short Gender dynamics in digital health: overcoming blind spots and biases to seize opportunities and responsibilities for transformative health systems
title_sort gender dynamics in digital health: overcoming blind spots and biases to seize opportunities and responsibilities for transformative health systems
topic Digital health in LMICs: Unpacking health equity and gender dimensions
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6294040/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/30307517
http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/pubmed/fdy180
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