Submission ID 118522
| Issue/Objective | Digital transformation is reshaping health systems and expanding access to health information around the world. While this progress has opened new doors for many, it hasn't reached everyone equally. Socio-economic status, gender, and other forms of inequality have created digital divides, gaps that leave many people without the vital health information and services they need. Efforts to regulate this fast-moving digital shift are struggling to keep pace, often falling short in preventing harm or holding platforms accountable. This is especially concerning for women living with HIV who do not have economic autonomy or are subject of forms of partner or family monitoring and youth. |
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| Methodology/Approach | We present the findings of a series of Focus Group Discussions conducted as part of the project The Future of Human Rights in the Digital Age, led by the Digital Health and Rights Project (DHRP). A multi-country project carried out in Colombia, Ghana, Kenya and Vietnam. The DHRP consortium brings together social scientists, global and national networks of people living with HIV, and civil society leaders in a collaborative effort to conduct research and translate its insights into action, with the aim of informing and strengthening global health governance. |
| Results | The preliminary findings demonstrate the persistence of multiple digital divides, economic divides, infrastructure and geography and stigmatization an evidences of "Lateral surveillance" (Andrejevic, 2007), carried out by family members, acquaintances, and colleagues in efforts to uncover or verify digital evidence about HIV status, especially in the case of women living with HIV, jeopardizing their access to care using digital technologies. |
| Discussion/Conclusion | In Colombia, in statistical terms, there is no significant gap in connectivity between men and women, except for signal quality, where men have more access to 4G. Nevertheless, such data can obscure the difficulties of people living with HIV when accessing or searching for care using digital technologies. At the geographic level, there are still important divisions between rural and urban access. The cost of internet access and the lack of high-speed internet connectivity in some regions also remain major sources of concern in Colombia. |
| Presenters and affiliations | Catalina Gonzalez-Uribe Universidad de los Andes Sebastian Leon-Giraldo Universidad de los Andes Javier Guerrero-C Universidad de los Andes Cindy Zapata Universidad de los Andes |
