Defining the Scope of Digital Public Health and Its Implications for Policy, Practice, and Research: Protocol for a Scoping Review

Abstract

Background There has been rapid development and application of digital technologies in public health domains, which are considered to have the potential to transform public health. However, this growing interest in digital technologies in public health has not been accompanied by a clarity of scope to guide policy, practice, and research in this rapidly emergent field. Objective This scoping review seeks to determine the scope of digital health as described by public health researchers and practitioners and to consolidate a conceptual framework of digital public health. Methods The review follows Arksey and O’Malley’s framework for conducting scoping reviews with improvements as suggested by Levac et al. The search strategy will be applied to Embase, Medline, and Google Scholar. A grey literature search will be conducted on intergovernmental agency websites and country-specific websites. Titles and abstracts will be reviewed by independent reviewers, while full-text reviews will be conducted by 2 reviewers to determine eligibility based on prespecified inclusion and exclusion criteria. The data will be coded in an iterative approach using the best-fit framework analysis methodology. Results This research project received funding from the British Columbia Centre for Disease Control Foundation for Population and Public Health on January 1, 2020. The initial search was conducted on June 1, 2020 and returned 6953 articles in total. After deduplication, 4523 abstracts were reviewed, and 227 articles have been included in the review. Ethical approval is not required for this review as it uses publicly available data. Conclusions We anticipate that the findings of the scoping review will contribute relevant evidence to health policy makers and public health practitioners involved in planning, funding, and delivering health services that leverage digital technologies. Results of the review will be strategically disseminated through publications in scientific journals, conferences, and engagement with relevant stakeholders. International Registered Report Identifier (IRRID) DERR1-10.2196/27686

Challenges in the development of digital public health interventions and mapped solutions: Findings from a scoping review

“…Our methods and findings about the definition of the field have been described in detail elsewhere. 5 , 10 Here we focus on the challenges and recommended solutions to support the development and implementation of digital public health interventions. We followed Arksey and O’Malley's framework for scoping reviews, 11 with adaptations suggested by Levac et al.…”

“…We excluded primary research studies like trials and cross-sectional studies, given that our focus was on assessing the discourse around digital technologies in public health and not specifically on assessing any digital interventions in public health. 10 We included articles published in English between January 2000 and June 2020. Included titles and abstracts were exported to Covidence® for further review and citation management.…”

“…We further applied these terms on the Google search engine to inspect 14 pre-identified government and intergovernmental agency websites. 10 We reviewed the first 100 returns from Google Scholar and each website searched. Finally, manual reference list searches were conducted on included articles to identify additional publications.…”

“…Pre-established inclusion and exclusion criteria were used during the title and abstract screening. 10 Articles that broadly conceptualized digital health from a population and public health perspective that were published in English between January 2000 and June 2020 were included ( Table 1 ). We drew on the CPHA's definition of public health as “an organized effort of society to keep persons healthy and prevent injury, illness and premature death, including a combination of programs, services, and policies that protect and promote the health of all.” 14 Publications that evaluated specific health programs or interventions, focused solely on clinical perspectives, or short summaries of less than 500 words were excluded.…”

Defining Digital Public Health and the Role of Digitization, Digitalization, and Digital Transformation: Scoping Review

“…The findings presented in this study are part of a larger scoping review aimed at conceptualizing the breadth of digital public health, the methods for which are described elsewhere [ 15 ]. For this study, we used the framework by Arksey and O’Malley [ 16 ] with adaptations as suggested by Levac et al [ 17 ].…”