scholarly journals Digital Health Strategies to Fight COVID-19 Worldwide: Challenges, Recommendations, and a Call for Papers

10.2196/19284 ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 22 (6) ◽  
pp. e19284 ◽  
Author(s):  
Guy Fagherazzi ◽  
Catherine Goetzinger ◽  
Mohammed Ally Rashid ◽  
Gloria A Aguayo ◽  
Laetitia Huiart
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
Digital Health ◽  
Digital Tools ◽  
Risk Of Infection ◽  
Care Model ◽  
Health Initiatives ◽  
Social Media Platforms ◽  
Health Social Media ◽  
Public Reaction

The coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic has created an urgent need for coordinated mechanisms to respond to the outbreak across health sectors, and digital health solutions have been identified as promising approaches to address this challenge. This editorial discusses the current situation regarding digital health solutions to fight COVID-19 as well as the challenges and ethical hurdles to broad and long-term implementation of these solutions. To decrease the risk of infection, telemedicine has been used as a successful health care model in both emergency and primary care. Official communication plans should promote facile and diverse channels to inform people about the pandemic and to avoid rumors and reduce threats to public health. Social media platforms such as Twitter and Google Trends analyses are highly beneficial to model pandemic trends as well as to monitor the evolution of patients’ symptoms or public reaction to the pandemic over time. However, acceptability of digital solutions may face challenges due to potential conflicts with users’ cultural, moral, and religious backgrounds. Digital tools can provide collective public health benefits; however, they may be intrusive and can erode individual freedoms or leave vulnerable populations behind. The COVID-19 pandemic has demonstrated the strong potential of various digital health solutions that have been tested during the crisis. More concerted measures should be implemented to ensure that future digital health initiatives will have a greater impact on the epidemic and meet the most strategic needs to ease the life of people who are at the forefront of the crisis.

scholarly journals Digital Health Strategies to Fight COVID-19 Worldwide: Challenges, Recommendations, and a Call for Papers (Preprint)

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Guy Fagherazzi ◽  
Catherine Goetzinger ◽  
Mohammed Ally Rashid ◽  
Gloria A Aguayo ◽  
Laetitia Huiart
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
Digital Health ◽  
Digital Tools ◽  
Risk Of Infection ◽  
Care Model ◽  
Health Initiatives ◽  
Social Media Platforms ◽  
Health Social Media ◽  
Public Reaction

UNSTRUCTURED The coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic has created an urgent need for coordinated mechanisms to respond to the outbreak across health sectors, and digital health solutions have been identified as promising approaches to address this challenge. This editorial discusses the current situation regarding digital health solutions to fight COVID-19 as well as the challenges and ethical hurdles to broad and long-term implementation of these solutions. To decrease the risk of infection, telemedicine has been used as a successful health care model in both emergency and primary care. Official communication plans should promote facile and diverse channels to inform people about the pandemic and to avoid rumors and reduce threats to public health. Social media platforms such as Twitter and Google Trends analyses are highly beneficial to model pandemic trends as well as to monitor the evolution of patients’ symptoms or public reaction to the pandemic over time. However, acceptability of digital solutions may face challenges due to potential conflicts with users’ cultural, moral, and religious backgrounds. Digital tools can provide collective public health benefits; however, they may be intrusive and can erode individual freedoms or leave vulnerable populations behind. The COVID-19 pandemic has demonstrated the strong potential of various digital health solutions that have been tested during the crisis. More concerted measures should be implemented to ensure that future digital health initiatives will have a greater impact on the epidemic and meet the most strategic needs to ease the life of people who are at the forefront of the crisis.

scholarly journals Proposal for the Development and Addition of a Cybersecurity Assessment Section into Technology Involving Global Public Health

2020 ◽  
pp. 48-61
Author(s):  
Stanley Mierzwa ◽  
◽  
Saumya RamaRao ◽  
Jung Ah Yun ◽  
Bok Gyo Jeong ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
Information Technologies ◽  
Digital Health ◽  
Public Health Research ◽  
Global Public Health ◽  
Security Risk ◽  
Healthcare Organizations ◽  
Non Profit ◽  
Health Initiatives ◽  
Security Risk Assessment

This paper discusses and proposes the inclusion of a cyber or security risk assessment section during the course of public health initiatives involving the use of information and communication computer technology. Over the last decade, many public health research efforts have included information technologies such as Mobile Health (mHealth), Electronic Health (eHealth), Telehealth, and Digital Health to assist with unmet global development health needs. This paper provides a background on the lack of documentation on cybersecurity risks or vulnerability assessments in global public health areas. This study suggests existing frameworks and policies be adopted for public health. We also propose to incorporate a simple assessment toolbox and a research paper section intended to help minimize cybersecurity and information security risks for public, non-profit, and healthcare organizations.

scholarly journals Digital Health Communication Common Agenda 2.0: An Updated Consensus for the Public and Private Sectors to Advance Public Health

2019 ◽  
Vol 46 (2_suppl) ◽  
pp. 124S-128S ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert S. Gold ◽  
M. Elaine Auld ◽  
Lorien C. Abroms ◽  
Joseph Smyser ◽  
Elad Yom-Tov ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
Social Media ◽  
Health Communication ◽  
Digital Health ◽  
Public And Private ◽  
The Public ◽  
Social Media Platforms ◽  
Use Of The Internet ◽  
Legal Frameworks ◽  
Common Agenda

Despite widespread use of the Internet and social media platforms by the public, there has been little organized exchange of information among the academic, government, and technology sectors about how digital communication technologies can be maximized to improve public health. The second Digital Health Promotion Executive Leadership Summit convened some of the world’s leading thinkers from across these sectors to revisit how communication technology and the evolving social media platforms can be utilized to improve both individual and population health. The Summit focused on digital intelligence, the spread of misinformation, online patient communities, censorship in social media, and emerging global legal frameworks. In addition, Summit participants had an opportunity to review the original “Common Agenda” that emerged and was published after the inaugural Summit and recommend updates regarding the uses of digital technology for advancing the goals of public health. This article reports the outcomes of the Summit discussions and presents the updates that were recommended by Summit participants as the Digital Health Communication Common Agenda 2.0. Several of the assertions underlying the original Common Agenda have been modified, and several new assertions have been added to reflect the recommendations. In addition, a corresponding set of principles and related actions—including a recommendation that an interagency panel of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services be established to focus on digital health communication, with particular attention to social media—have been modified or supplemented.

scholarly journals Digit-all: Rare Diseases

2020 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
Health System ◽  
Rare Disease ◽  
Rare Diseases ◽  
Care Coordination ◽  
Digital Health ◽  
Global Public Health ◽  
Public Health Priority ◽  
Health Initiatives ◽  
Public Health Challenges

Rare diseases are increasingly recognised as a global public health priority and contribute to significant and disproportionately high health system impacts. Accordingly, they present clinical and public health challenges, as well as opportunities for digital health solutions across the lifespan, including improved diagnosis, treatment, navigation and care coordination, and integration and coordination for broader societal and patient wellbeing. People living with rare diseases, individually and cumulatively, are digital disruptors. In this manuscript the authors describe some of the unique dynamics of the rare disease domain as they currently, or have the potential to in the future, apply to digital health; highlight some recent international rare diseases digital health initiatives; and touch upon implications for those with more common disorders.

scholarly journals Evidence-Based Health Informatics as the Foundation for the COVID-19 Response: A Joint Call for Action

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Luis Fernandez-Luque ◽  
Andre W. Kushniruk ◽  
Andrew Georgiou ◽  
Arindam Basu ◽  
Carolyn Petersen ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
Interest Groups ◽  
Special Interest ◽  
Health Informatics ◽  
Digital Health ◽  
Health Interventions ◽  
Digital Tools ◽  
Special Interest Groups ◽  
Evidence Based ◽  
Health Crisis

Abstract Background As a major public health crisis, the novel coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic demonstrates the urgent need for safe, effective, and evidence-based implementations of digital health. The urgency stems from the frequent tendency to focus attention on seemingly high promising digital health interventions despite being poorly validated in times of crisis. Aim In this paper, we describe a joint call for action to use and leverage evidence-based health informatics as the foundation for the COVID-19 response and public health interventions. Tangible examples are provided for how the working groups and special interest groups of the International Medical Informatics Association (IMIA) are helping to build an evidence-based response to this crisis. Methods Leaders of working and special interest groups of the IMIA, a total of 26 groups, were contacted via e-mail to provide a summary of the scientific-based efforts taken to combat COVID-19 pandemic and participate in the discussion toward the creation of this manuscript. A total of 13 groups participated in this manuscript. Results Various efforts were exerted by members of IMIA including (1) developing evidence-based guidelines for the design and deployment of digital health solutions during COVID-19; (2) surveying clinical informaticians internationally about key digital solutions deployed to combat COVID-19 and the challenges faced when implementing and using them; and (3) offering necessary resources for clinicians about the use of digital tools in clinical practice, education, and research during COVID-19. Discussion Rigor and evidence need to be taken into consideration when designing, implementing, and using digital tools to combat COVID-19 to avoid delays and unforeseen negative consequences. It is paramount to employ a multidisciplinary approach for the development and implementation of digital health tools that have been rapidly deployed in response to the pandemic bearing in mind human factors, ethics, data privacy, and the diversity of context at the local, national, and international levels. The training and capacity building of front-line workers is crucial and must be linked to a clear strategy for evaluation of ongoing experiences.

scholarly journals PUBLIC REACTION TO COVID-19 ON TWITTER: A THEMATIC ANALYSIS

2020 ◽  
pp. 349-358
Author(s):  
Akif Mustafa ◽  
Imaduddin Ansari ◽  
Subham Kumar Mohanta ◽  
Shalem Balla
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
Social Media ◽  
Thematic Analysis ◽  
Public Attention ◽  
The Public ◽  
Emergency Situations ◽  
Public Health Emergencies ◽  
Health Authorities ◽  
Social Media Platforms ◽  
Public Reaction

Emergency situations typically lead to a plethora of public attention on social media platforms like ‘Twitter’. Twitter provides a unique opportunity for public health researchers to analyze untampered information shared during a disease outbreak. Considering the ongoing public health emergency, we conducted a study investigating the public reaction to COVID-19 pandemic around the world using in-depth thematic analysis of Twitter data. A dataset of 212846 tweets was retrieved over a period of seven days (from April 13, 2020, to April 19, 2020) via Twitter Application Programme Interface (API). The following five keywords were used to collect the tweets: “coronavirus”, “covid-19”, “corona”, “covid”, “covid19”. After data filtering and cleaning 6348 tweets were randomly selected for in-depth thematic analysis. Thematic analysis was done manually using a two-level coding guide. A total of six main themes emerged from the analysis: ‘sentiments and feelings’, ‘Information’, ‘General Discussion’, ‘Politics’, ‘Food’, and ‘Sarcasm or humor’. The aforementioned themes were divided into 26 sub-themes. The results of the thematic analysis show that 30.1% of the tweets were regarding ‘sentiments and feelings’, 15.6% were regarding ‘politics’, and 6.5% were related to ‘sarcasm or humor’. The present study is the first study that has analyzed the public response to COVID-19 on Twitter. The study demonstrates that social media platforms (like Twitter) can be used to conduct infodemiological studies related to public health emergencies like the COVID-19 pandemic. We believe that the results of this study will be of potential interest to policymakers, health authorities, stakeholders, and public health and social science researchers. KEYWORDS:COVID-19, Twitter, Social Media, Coronavirus, Lockdown, Pandemic

scholarly journals Personalized Healthcare and Public Health in the Digital Age

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Oliver Chén ◽  
Bryn Roberts
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
Digital Health ◽  
Digital Age ◽  
Mitigation Strategies ◽  
Disease Assessment ◽  
Short Term ◽  
Self Monitoring ◽  
Personalized Healthcare ◽  
Health And Disease

This review explores the important roles that digital health plays in advancing personalized healthcare and public health, and how it may evolve in the future. For the former, we argue that digital health (1) allows self-monitoring of health and disease, (2) facilitates semi-automated disease assessment and diagnosis, and (3) connects and improves personalized healthcare and public health. For the latter, we first present the short-term focus of digital health, including its role in dealing with the COVID-19 pandemic. We then examine its mid-term challenges and provide potential mitigation strategies and resolutions. We conclude with an informed speculation on long-term outlooks of personalized healthcare and public health in the digital age.

scholarly journals Digit-all: Rare Diseases

2020 ◽  
pp. 11-16
Author(s):  
Gareth Baynam ◽  
Lynsey Chediak ◽  
Gemma Bilkey ◽  
Dylan Gration ◽  
Samuel Agyei Wiafe
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
Health System ◽  
Rare Disease ◽  
Rare Diseases ◽  
Care Coordination ◽  
Digital Health ◽  
Global Public Health ◽  
Public Health Priority ◽  
Health Initiatives ◽  
Public Health Challenges

Rare diseases are increasingly recognised as a global public health priority and contribute to significant and disproportionately high health system impacts. Accordingly, they present clinical and public health challenges, as well as opportunities for digital health solutions across the lifespan, including improved diagnosis, treatment, navigation and care coordination, and integration and coordination for broader societal and patient wellbeing. People living with rare diseases, individually and cumulatively, are digital disruptors. In this manuscript the authors describe some of the unique dynamics of the rare disease domain as they currently, or have the potential to in the future, apply to digital health; highlight some recent international rare diseases digital health initiatives; and touch upon implications for those with more common disorders.

scholarly journals Using Innovation to Develop Digital Tools for Public Health During the COVID-19 Pandemic

2021 ◽  
pp. 50-60
Author(s):  
Kate Mark ◽  
Jay Bradley ◽  
Chaloner Chute ◽  
Colin Sumpter ◽  
Mahmood Adil ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
Digital Health ◽  
New Technology ◽  
Data Entry ◽  
Innovation Process ◽  
Digital Tools ◽  
Contact Tracing ◽  
Local Health ◽  
Innovative Methods ◽  
Design Innovation

Introduction: Technology has played a key role in enabling public health to respond to the COVID-19 pandemic at a pace and scale never seen before. The Digital Health and Care Innovation Centre (DHI) assisted with development of two new digital services to enable testing and contact tracing at scale using innovative methods. Methods: The DHI employed a design innovation approach by bringing all relevant stakeholders together to co-design new technology services to identify the ‘preferred future’. Workshops were used to identify the preferred solutions. The innovative methods for development of digital health tools included adopting an iterative approach, addressing the situational requirements posed by COVID-19, and democratising technology for purposes of pandemic control. Results: A National Notification Service (NNS) for automation of delivery and feedback (if results messages were viewed) was developed and adopted by five of the 14 health boards in Scotland, processing over 7 million results since inception. The Simple Tracing Tools (STT) is an open-platform web-based app that is designed for data entry by contact tracing teams. STT was adopted by all local health protection teams and informed development of the national case management system. Discussion: The Cynefin framework can be used to understand the design innovation process when facing the challenges of designing digital tools during a pandemic. There are significant opportunities for public health to engage with digital health to transform the pandemic response and derive benefit for tackling future population health challenges.

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