According to a 2015 GSMA report, women and young ladies in low-income neighborhoods and countries are less likely to own digital technologies than their male counterparts. It is no surprise that women lack control over their individual potential to engage in digital health and digital health products that could increase their overall wellbeing. This disproportionate ownership demonstrates a key theme – access.
Unfortunately, the full potential of digital health is hindered due to overall accessibility and the lack of support from stakeholders, including employers and communities, in addition to the programs and policies that are in place to sustain a strong digital health foundation for all women, despite their economic background.
Although the obstacles of accessibility and stakeholder buy-in exist in ensuring women have access, we still have the potential to not only transform women’s health but also improve gender relations in the U.S. As a 2022 article from Anthem supports, digital health improves women’s overall decision-making, social status, communication with their partners, and most importantly and repeatedly, access to resources.
We, as a society, have a responsibility to ensure our health system works for everyone, including women. Although we must still find solutions that actively put mobile devices, computers, etc. in the hands of women across the globe; there are several steps we can take to move the needle toward positive gender relations.
First, application developers need to ensure their tools provide safety, privacy, efficacy, and accessibility to ensure women and other underprivileged groups have adequate access by having their application go through the Digital Health Assessment Framework (DHAF) - a U.S. framework for assessing digital health technologies, including mobile apps and web-based tools used by healthcare providers and consumers. Secondly, organizations, government systems, and healthcare providers have the ability to administer libraries and formularies of these assessed digital tools to specific populations (i.e. mental health libraries specifically for women).
Understanding the connection between women and digital health allows us to support partnerships and synergies, force us to stop exacerbating gender inequalities, and provide solutions to ensure women are no longer left behind in the digital health revolution. We just have to create the intersection to do so.
Samantha Elder is the U.S. Vice President of Marketing for ORCHA Health.
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