An mHealth Approach to Addressing Health Inequity
ABSTRACT: Little is known at the local level how mHealth interventions support consumers’ goal of a healthy lifestyle and the impact of mHealth interventions on providing equitable care. This paper investigates: 1) the social determinants of health (SDOH) that affect the ability of people to be healthy and 2) clinicians use of mHealth interventions to facilitate equitable provision of healthcare. Socioeconomic and health data was collected from all 93 Nebraska counties. A positive correlation was found between the ability of people to be healthy and their access to health insurance and fresh food. A correlation was also discovered between poverty and the ability of people to be healthy and access food. A mobile app was then developed to provide information on available community resources for patients of a student-run free clinic. The contribution of this study is determining how mHealth can be used as a sustainable health equity intervention.
Keywords: Health equity, Social determinants of health, mHealth, Systems engineering, Sustainable development
Social Determinants of Health Inequities and Human Development: Is there a role for mHealth in overcoming health inequities?
ABSTRACT: The spread of the pandemic in recent years has disproportionately affected people who are unable to access the basic resources needed to survive. Such resources include but are not limited to food, shelter, capital and the ability to find the information they need to stay healthy. These socioeconomic factors influence the manner in which people and communities are able to recover. This paper investigates the relationship between social determinants of health and human development and the role of mHealth in overcoming health inequities. Data was collected for 27 variables from 189 countries through the United Nations, World Bank and the World Health Organization’s databases. Following an analysis of a model comprising of indices created to test a set of hypotheses, this paper offers unique insight into the social determinants of health that can be overcome through mHealth. The contribution of this paper is in uncovering the social determinants of health that are related to human development and how mhealth access is related to social determinants of health and the Human Development Index. This has implications for how inequalities may be addressed through mobile health applications to bring about human development.
Keywords: Health equity, Social determinants of health, mHealth, Health inequity
The Effect of Mobile Health and Social Inequalities on Human Development and Health Outcomes: Mhealth for Health Equity
ABSTRACT: The equitable provision of healthcare entails the distribution of resources and other processes to overcome health inequality. The concept of heath equity suggests that differences in social and economic backgrounds of people affect their ability to lead the lives they choose to live. Following a review of what is known about health equity, social determinants of health equity and the role of mobile health, this paper investigates the relationship between mHealth, social inequalities in life expectancy and in education on Human Development and Health and Wellbeing. The analysis discovers a significant relationship between mHealth, social inequalities in human development and health outcomes. These findings have important implications for the use of mHealth applications to achieve health equity. The contribution of this paper is in understanding the role of social inequalities in and mHealth in enabling people to bring about improvements in the lives they lead and in their health outcomes.
Keywords: Health equity, Human development, mHealth, Healthcare, wellbeing
What is the role of ICTs in addressing health outcomes and limitations from socio-economic status?
ABSTRACT: While access to information and communication technologies (ICTs) have been touted as a key determinant for human development, few studies have investigated how ICT implementations assist people with low socioeconomic status (SES) and the impacts this might have on health outcomes. This paper investigates the relation between having access to ICTs, health outcomes, and SES. The association between socioeconomic affluence and health is even recognized by policymakers, which suggests that there is an association between SES status and health. This paper addresses the gap in the literature by investigating the research questions: 1) what is the relation between access to ICTs and fair or poor health? 2) Is there a relation between access to ICTs and socio-economic status? The findings illustrate that having less access to ICTs is related to individuals more frequently reporting fair or poor health and having less access to ICTs relates to low SES communities that are in poverty, have lower education rates, have a high number of uninsured people, have people who experience more physical distress, and live in rural areas. A key contribution is that access to ICTs does have a correlation to health and that access to ICTs have a relation to low SES. This means that ICTs can help people access resources to assist with poverty, insurance, education, physical distress, and people who live in rural populations can take advantage of ICTs to help them lead the lives they choose to live.
Keywords: mHealth, Development as freedom, socioeconomic determinants of health, socio-economic status, freedom
