Accepted for/Published in: JMIR Research Protocols
Date Submitted: Oct 21, 2025
Date Accepted: Jan 22, 2026
Warning: This is an author submission that is not peer-reviewed or edited. Preprints - unless they show as "accepted" - should not be relied on to guide clinical practice or health-related behavior and should not be reported in news media as established information.
Public Engagement Strategies in Digital Health Ethics: Protocol for a Scoping Review
ABSTRACT
Background:
Advances in digital health and artificial intelligence promise transformative impacts on healthcare but also raise significant ethical, legal, and social (ELSA) issues. Addressing these challenges requires meaningful public engagement to ensure that technological innovation aligns with societal values and needs. However, current studies in participatory digital health rarely characterize engagement strategies in terms of their scalability, representativeness, or degree of participation, and no reviews have examined how ethical debates inform these approaches.
Objective:
This scoping review aims to (1) identify methods and media used to engage the public in digital health ethics; (2) characterize these approaches regarding scalability, representativeness, and participatory depth; and (3) explore how ethical considerations shape the design and implementation of participatory strategies in digital health.
Methods:
The review will follow the Joanna Briggs Institute (JBI) methodology for scoping reviews and adhere to the PRISMA-ScR reporting guidelines. Academic databases, including PubMed, ScienceDirect, Scopus, IEEE Xplore, and Web of Science will be searched for studies published between January 2015 and August 2025. All identified papers will be imported into Rayyan for duplicate removal and independent screening by two reviewers. Data will be extracted using a structured spreadsheet capturing bibliographic details, study characteristics, engagement methods, media, and ethical dimensions relevant to the research questions.
Results:
We anticipate identifying and summarizing studies according to engagement method, country, and technology type. Expected outputs include descriptive tables and thematic syntheses mapping the degree of participation, scalability, and representativeness of engagement methods, as well as the ethical rationales underlying their design and implementation.
Conclusions:
This protocol outlines a systematic approach to mapping public engagement strategies in digital health ethics. The anticipated findings will contribute to improving participatory and ethically responsible innovation practices in digital health. Clinical Trial: Not applicable.
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Copyright
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