JMIR Publications

ABSTRACT

Digital Public Health (DiPH) presents itself as an emerging field for population-based research and practice. The fast development of digital technologies provides a fundamentally new understanding of improving Public Health by using digitalization, especially in prevention and health promotion. The first step towards a better understanding of DiPH is to conceptualize the subject of assessment by answering what DiPH interventions are. This is important as one cannot evaluate tools if one does not know what precisely an intervention in this field can be. Therefore, this paper aims to give the first definition for DiPH interventions. We will merge leading models for Public Health functions by the WHO, a framework for digital health technologies by the National Institute for Care and Excellence (NICE), and a user-centered approach to intervention development. Together, they provide us with an overview of functions and areas of use for DiPH interventions. Nevertheless, one must keep in mind that Public Health functions can differ between different healthcare systems, limiting our new framework's universal validity. We conclude that a DiPH intervention should address essential Public Health functions by digital means. Furthermore, it should include members of the target-group in the development process to improve social acceptance and achieve a population health impact.