Principles and implementation strategies for equitable and representative academic partnerships in global health informatics research.

Abstract

Objective: Developing equitable, sustainable informatics solutions is key to scalability and long-term success for projects in the global health informatics (GHI) domain. This paper presents key strategies for incorporating principles of health equity in the GHI project lifecycle.

Materials and methods: The American Medical Informatics Association (AMIA) GHI Working Group organized a collaborative workshop at the 2023 AMIA Annual Symposium that included the presentation of five case studies of how principles of health equity have been incorporated into projects situated in low-and-middle-income countries and with Indigenous communities in the U.S. and best practices for operationalizing these principles into other informatics projects.

Results: We present five principles: (1) Inclusion and Participation in Ethical, Sustainable Collaborations; (2) Engaging Community-Based Participatory Research Approaches; (3) Stakeholder Engagement; (4) Scalability and Sustainability; (5) Representation in Knowledge Creation, along with strategies that informatics researchers may use to incorporate these principles into their work.

Discussion: Presented case studies and subsequent focus groups yielded key concepts and strategies to promote health equity that may be operationalized across GHI projects.

Conclusion: Equitable, sustainable, and scalable GHI projects require intentional integration of community and stakeholder perspectives in project development, implementation, and knowledge creation processes.