Revisiting critical digital health studies in the age of generative AI: Research in Health and beyond.

Abstract

This review article for Health's 30th anniversary special issue provides an update on an article I contributed for the 20th anniversary of Health in 2016 which outlined how the sub-field of critical digital health studies has been explored in the journal. The current review article is in two parts. It begins with an overview of digital health research published in Health in the decade since the first review was published, reflecting on the methods and conceptual approaches that have been used over the past 10 years to engage with this topic. The second part goes on to consider how critical digital health studies might address the latest 'big thing' in digital health: generative AI applications. Some bold claims have been made about the benefits that generative AI models are supposed to offer patients and healthcare providers, but their impacts have not yet been fully evaluated from a critical digital health perspective. The article ends by emphasising the importance of acknowledging and identifying how the introduction of generative AI applications into medicine and health care can harm humans and the ecosystems of which they are part. Critical digital health studies should therefore expand its focus beyond its current human-centric preoccupations. As an interdisciplinary social research journal from its inception, Health is well-placed to offer a home for such critical analyses.