Sparks! Follow-up initiative: Adopting an intersectional feminist approach in digital health for gender equality and human rights
Participants of the last Sparks! edition spontaneously gathered at IdeaSquare in a follow-up initiative with a conviction: that digital technologies for health must prioritise gender equality and human rights, and that an end-to-end intersectional feminist approach is necessary.
This workshop aimed to convene thought leaders from diverse disciplinary backgrounds in gender, equity, medical innovation, economics, human rights, social science, AI, and digital technologies, many of which participated in Sparks! 2022, to continue the conversation that started at the event. It allowed in-depth conversations about the pressing concerns related to biases related to gender, diversity, equity, and human rights in digital technologies for health use, with an end-to-end lens from research and product design to data collection and use, to adoption to improve health outcomes and healthcare delivery.
Intersectionality is an analytical framework for understanding how individuals' various social and political identities result in unique combinations of discrimination and privilege. The intersection of these different discriminations and privileges creates specific dynamics, such as the cumulation of discriminations, the invisibilisation of individuals of a certain social category, etc.
This workshop intended to foster networking and knowledge exchange among participants and inspire collaborative initiatives beyond the event, addressing the following:
- How do intersectional gender (and economic) inequalities shape each stage of design, research and data collection, funding, priority-setting, development, and scale-up of digital technologies for health? What are the questions that must be asked at each step to ensure appropriate attention?
- What are intersectional feminist principles that could be applied to an end-to-end approach to digital health innovation that ensures gender equity, inclusion, and equitable access?
- What are the key challenges, opportunities, and best practices for promoting gender quality, equity, and human rights in digital health innovation?
Such an intersectional approach is crucial to help transforming patriarchal and other unequal power structures to improve lives of women and girls and other marginalized groups to achieve gender equality, equity and social justice.
Possible outcomes of this workshop could be to draw the outline and content for a commentary/opinion article in an open access academic journal, or to draft roadmap for advancing collaboration and securing funding to develop the intersectional feminist framework for AI/digital technologies for health.
