The World Well being Group (WHO) has designated Public Well being Wales as a collaborating centre for digital well being fairness.
The partnership will play a key position in shaping WHO’s work on digital well being fairness and strengthening collaboration and advocacy amongst regional stakeholders on this space.
A examine revealed by WHO/Europe and Public Well being Wales in 2022 discovered that digital well being instruments should not accessible to everybody in Europe equally, with folks affected by poor well being, migrants and older adults encounter the best challenges in utilizing expertise.
Dr Natasha Azzopardi Muscat, director of well being methods at WHO/Europe, stated: “Individuals who stand to learn most from digital innovation are sometimes the primary to be left behind.
“Solely 25 nations in our area have carried out a digital inclusion plan.
“We have to higher perceive and tackle the drivers of this inequity, in order that we are able to enhance everybody’s means to entry, use and actually profit from digital well being applied sciences. This can be on the core of our partnership with Public Well being Wales.”
The examine additionally discovered larger use of digital well being options amongst folks with extra superior training ranges and better financial standing.
As a WHO collaborating centre, Public Well being Wales will contribute to technical evaluations, analysis and evidence-gathering to help WHO’s work on digital well being fairness at regional and international ranges.
Key areas of collaboration embrace supporting the implementation of the regional digital well being motion plan for the WHO European Area 2023–2030, figuring out greatest practices and guiding inclusive digital well being coverage growth.
Professor Alisha Davies, deputy director of information, digital and analysis, and head of analysis and analysis at Public Well being Wales, stated: “Well being methods in Wales and throughout the European area are embracing digital applied sciences and digital well being information to enhance well being and forestall sickness.
“These instruments supply important potential, but when we overlook points like unequal entry, digital literacy and inherent bias, we threat widening present well being inequalities.
“By working with WHO, we goal to make sure that digital innovation is guided by person wants, fairness and methods considering, in order that digital well being serves to cut back, not reinforce, well being inequalities.”
In its progress report on the regional digital well being motion plan, WHO/Europe stated that it’s dedicated to increasing the community of collaborating centres to drive digital transformation in well being methods.
There are actually 4 WHO collaborating centres on digital well being within the WHO European Area, together with the European Campus Rottal-Inn at Deggendorf Institute of Know-how in Germany, the Norwegian Centre for E-health Analysis and the Open College of Catalonia in Spain.
In the meantime, in July 2024 WHO launched a community to advance information and digital options for well being by means of a collaborative method, bringing collectively the 53 member states of the WHO European area – together with the UK – and companions within the fields of information and digital well being.
