Abstract
Digital health technologies have great potential in supporting health and wellbeing of individuals, even of older adults, and in optimizing the current care provision. This explains why many countries are increasingly digitalizing health and care services. However, some studies report that digital health technologies, when implemented on a routine basis, tend to lack inclusiveness, especially regarding underserved and vulnerable groups of individuals. Thus, a growing concern is whether digital health technologies guarantee equal access and similar advantages to different groups of older adults. Such exclusiveness might partially originate from the selective participation occurring in digital health research, especially when it targets older adults, which in turn might lead to exclusive technologies. The cumulative life-course inequality lens, combined with concepts from digital sociology, can explain both the advantages for diverse groups of older adults regarding digital health and the possible replication of existing inequalities through digital technologies. Building on these foundations, we discuss a conceptualization of the selective participation in digital health research and present a methodological approach developed for analyzing and estimating its impact on the results obtained. In order for society to exploit fully the potential of a digitalized society and benefit from the advantages of digital health technologies, inclusiveness and equality must be kept as fundamental assumptions. One way to ensure this is to identify possible exclusiveness and inequalities that might derive from digital health technologies early on in their testing phases, in order to enable policy and practice to move toward more inclusive strategies.
Presenters
Arianna PoliLinkoping University Susanne Kelfve
Linkoping University Andreas Motel Klingebiel
Professor in Ageing and Later Life, Research Director and Head of Division, Ageing and Social Change, Linköping University, Sweden
Details
Presentation Type
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session
Theme
2018 Special Focus: Aging, Health, Well-Being, and Care in a Time of Extreme Demographic Change
KEYWORDS
Technology Inequality Health
Digital Media
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