Chairs: Dr Stephen Roberts & Emma Back
Mission and objectives
“The future of healthcare is digital, and we must do what we can to promote universal access to these innovations and prevent them from becoming another driver for inequity.” World Health Organization Director-General, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus
Digital public health is a rapidly evolving field, offering the potential to transform population health and well-being across the world. The use of smartphones and other digital devices – particularly short-range Internet-of-Things devices such as fitness trackers – is now widespread. In recent years, mirroring this trend, we have seen a proliferation of digital tools designed to support health professionals and the wider public in areas such as disease surveillance, health service delivery, health-related behaviour change, and well-being more generally. Today, machine learning and other types of artificial intelligence (AI) are further transforming health research, disease diagnosis, outbreak prediction and early warning systems, public health risk modelling and more.
However, these transformations are double-edged. For example, AI could be a great leveller as we all explore the potential of this evolving technology and learn how to use it to good effect; but it could also widen health inequalities, as countries with advanced tech sectors and wealthy ‘early adopters’ rush ahead in this new global race. For AI and emerging digital health technologies to benefit everyone, international collaboration is vital. We have to work together so our laws, regulations and ethical frameworks comprehend and keep pace with technological development, and we need to proactively share knowledge, transfer technologies, co-innovate and learn across the Global South and Global North, to ensure no- one is left behind. This includes sharing the lessons emerging from existing knowledge exchange initiatives, such as the Artificial Intelligence for Global Health Community of Practice (AI4GH CoP), the Global South AI for Pandemic and Epidemic Preparedness (AI4PEP) Network, and platforms that share case studies in digital public health innovation and collaboration.
The objectives of this workshop are to share and discuss strategies for effective international knowledge exchange and collaboration in digital public health that can help unlock the potential of AI and other new technologies for all.
Themes and questions to be explored by this workshop include:
- What does ‘good’ look like in relation to international knowledge exchange and collaborative innovation in digital public health?
- How do South-South and South-North learning and knowledge exchange add value? What do they demand of us as researchers and practitioners?
- How can South-South and South-North collaboration in digital public health be effectively facilitated, governed, sustained and institutionalised, particularly in an era of increased fragmentation and cuts to longstanding funding sources?
- What are the most important technical and structural barriers to equitable international partnership in digital public health (e.g., longstanding epistemic hierarchies, health data poverty, capacity constraints within health systems)? How can we overcome them?
- What are the key enablers of equitable partnership (e.g., networks, collaborative platforms, funding models)? How can we promote them?
- How should we address the challenge of ‘coded inequities’ in AI-linked and other digital tools (e.g., language, geography, gender, ethnicity)?
- How can digital health co-design processes best integrate community expertise, lived experience and local knowledge (e.g., Ubuntu philosophy, indigenous knowledge)?
Intended audience
The target audience for this workshop includes digital public health researchers, policymakers, practitioners, health advocates, community organisations, engineers and designers, particularly those involved in enabling international knowledge exchange (e.g., managing processes involving collaborative innovation or co-design, co-ordinating global communities of practice, communities of interest and other networks, facilitating international knowledge exchange programmes, etc).
Expected Outcomes
This workshop will contribute to the following outcome areas:
- Documenting and sharing case studies of international knowledge exchange, collaborative learning and co-design in the field of digital public health.
- Identifying and promoting key enablers of effective international collaboration and equitable partnership in the field of digital public health.
- Promoting longer-term knowledge exchange and co-learning about AI and other transformative digital public health technologies among researchers and practitioners across the Global South and Global North.
Format and schedule
| Session | Duration | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Introduction and scene-setting | 5 min | Welcome speakers and participants. |
| Speaker Presentations | 40 min | 3-4 brief presentations from case study contributors, highlighting the key features of their collaborative practice or initiative, challenges, solutions, and overall learning/ insights |
| Breakout Group Discussions | 20-30 min | Breakout groups to discuss what works and what does not in international knowledge exchange on digital public health, drawing on the case studies presented |
| Feedback | 10 min | Group feedback of priority points and any emerging proposals |
| Closing remarks | 5 min |
Speakers
CALL FOR COLLABORATORS
We are seeking collaborators to co-chair this workshop in London in June 2027 and/ or to serve as members of the Programme Committee for the workshop Call for Papers. We are particularly keen to hear from interested academics and researchers from the Global South.
Please contact emma.back.22@ucl.ac.uk.
Institute for Global Health, University College London
Centre for Digital Public Health in Emergencies (dPHE), Department of
Risk and Disaster Reduction, University College London