Digital health technologies to transform women’s health innovation and inclusive research

Abstract

Bola Grace and colleagues argue that using digital health technologies ethically can increase the scope and scale of research and connect systems to improve women’s health Despite comprising over half the global population, women bear a disproportionate burden of adverse health outcomes with unique challenges.1 Historically, women were routinely excluded from clinical trials because of concerns about risks during pregnancy, fluctuating hormones, and a bias that viewed men’s bodies as the norm for medical research.2 Recently, there has been a gradual increase in the inclusion of women in clinical research; however, across a broader range of health conditions there is still room for improvement. Barriers faced by women in research participation include access, education, low incentives, digital literacy, transportation, time commitment, and research design.3 Addressing factors that influence inequities in women’s health requires innovation, not only in treatments and technologies but also in research designs and methodologies. Digital health technologies (DHTs) —defined as “systems that use computing platforms, connectivity, software, or sensors for health care and related uses”4—have facilitated the inclusion of diverse populations throughout the research lifecycle by improving accessibility, engagement, efficiency, and personalisation of interventions. In this article, part of a BMJ Collection on Women’s Health Innovation (www.bmj.com/collections/womens-health-innovation), we describe how DHTs, together with inclusive designs across the research lifecycle, can transform research from an extractive to a participatory process driving inclusion in scope, scale, and systems for improving women’s health. Social determinants of health refer to “the conditions in which people are born, grow, live, work and age, and people’s access to power, money and resources.”5 Historically, the approaches used in health research have often failed women through exclusion largely based on social determinants of health. Moving beyond these historical limitations requires a deliberate effort to adopt and integrate innovative approaches …