Back to the Future: Achieving Health Equity Through Health Informatics and Digital Health
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Abstract
The rapid proliferation of health informatics and digital health innovations has revolutionized clinical and research practices. There is no doubt that these fields will continue to have accelerated growth and a substantial impact on population health. However, there are legitimate concerns about how these promising technological advances can lead to unintended consequences such as perpetuating health and health care disparities for underresourced populations. To mitigate this potential pitfall, it is imperative for the health informatics and digital health scientific communities to understand the challenges faced by disadvantaged groups, including racial and ethnic minorities, which hinder their achievement of ideal health. This paper presents illustrative exemplars as case studies of contextually tailored, sociotechnical mobile health interventions designed with community members to address health inequities using community-engaged research approaches. We strongly encourage researchers and innovators to integrate community engagement into the development of data-driven, modernized solutions for every sector of society to truly achieve health equity for all.
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The small pilot study could not gather enough data to ensure an equitable digital diabetes ecosystem, because participants did not represent the full range of contexts and circumstances experienced by people living with diabetes.
“In this small pilot study, we could not focus adequately or gather enough data to ensure an equitable digital diabetes ecosystem [60], as our participants did not represent the full range of contexts and circumstances experienced by people living with diabetes.”
From Caregiver experiences of an integrative patient-centered digital health application for pediatric type 1 diabetes care: Findings from a pilot clinical trial (2025) · cites this paper as [60]
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References 92 · Cited by 367
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- Authors
- Brewer, L. C., Fortuna, K. L., Jones, C., Walker, R., Hayes, S. N., Patten, C. A., & Cooper, L. A.
- Affiliations
- Mayo Clinic (US)
- Dartmouth College (US)
- Massachusetts Department of Mental Health (US)
- Johns Hopkins University (US)
- Corresponding author
- Brewer, LaPrincess C
- ORCID
- Venue
- JMIR mHealth and uHealth
- Publisher
- JMIR Publications Inc.
- Published
- 2020-01-14
- Volume
- 8
- Issue
- 1
- Pages
- e14512
- ISSN
- 2291-5222 (ISSN-L)
- PMC
- PMC6996775
- OpenAlex
- W2980827162
- Cited by
- 367
- References
- 92
- Citations by year
- 2026: 29 · 2025: 75 · 2024: 79 · 2023: 49 · 2022: 77 · 2021: 44 · 2020: 11 · 2019: 3
- FWCI
- 46.01
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- gold
- doi.org
- Licence
- cc-by
- Locations
- JMIR mhealth and uhealth (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- PubMed Central (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- DOAJ (DOAJ: Directory of Open Access Journals) (submittedVersion, cc-by-sa)
- Funders
- World Health Organization
- National Institutes of Health (KL2TR002379)
- National Institute of Mental Health (K01MH117496)
- National Center for Research Resources (M01RR000585)
- National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences
- National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities (R21MD013490)
- Topics
- Health Sciences › Health Professions › General Health Professions › Mobile Health and mHealth Applications
- Social Sciences › Health › Health disparities and outcomes
- Social Sciences › Sociology and Political Science › Cultural Competency in Health Care
- Keywords
- health equity, health disparities, digital health, health informatics, mobile health intervention, community-engaged research, racial and ethnic minorities, population health
- MeSH terms
- Health Equity, Humans, Medical Informatics, Racial Groups, Healthcare Disparities, Community-Based Participatory Research
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