Accepted for/Published in: JMIR Research Protocols
Date Submitted: May 21, 2023
Date Accepted: Sep 11, 2023
Digital Rights and mHealth in Low- and Middle-Income Countries: Protocol for a Scoping Review
ABSTRACT
Background:
Digital technology is a means to uphold or violate human rights in various domains, including business, military, and health. Given the pervasiveness of mobile technology in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs), mobile health (mHealth) interventions present an opportunity to reach remote populations and enable them to exercise civil and political rights and social and economic rights. Simultaneously, the ubiquity of mobile phones involves processing sensitive data which can threaten rights. Digital health is often promoted as advancing human rights and health equity; however, digital rights are underexplored in the literature on mHealth in LMICs. As such, creating an understanding of the digital rights topics covered in the 2022 literature is important to avoid exacerbating existing inequities relating to digital health design, use, implementation, and access.
Objective:
This scoping review aims to identify digital rights topics in the 2022 peer-reviewed literature on mHealth in LMICs.
Methods:
The Arksey and O'Malley framework for scoping reviews guides this review. Searches were performed across six electronic databases (Web of Science, Scopus, Ovid, ACM Digital Library, IEEE Xplore, and ProQuest). The results will be reported using the PRISMA-ScR (Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses Extension for Scoping Reviews) checklist.
Results:
This scoping review was registered with the Open Science Framework on 22 December 2022. Title and abstract screening and full-text article screening were completed in 2023. This resulted in 56 articles being included in the study. The target date for completing data extraction and publishing a case study of the initial findings is the end of 2023. The full scoping review findings are expected to be disseminated through various academic pathways, including journal articles and conference presentations, by the end of 2024.
Conclusions:
The planned scoping review will identify digital rights topics in the 2022 literature at the intersection of mHealth and LMICs. Furthermore, it will highlight the importance of patient empowerment, data protection, and inclusion in mHealth research and related policies in LMICs. Clinical Trial: Open Science Framework; https://osf.io/7mz24
Citation
Per the author's request the PDF is not available.
Copyright
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