Digital inclusion, online participation and health promotion: promising practices from community-led participatory journalism

Abstract

A growing body of evidence demonstrates that digital inclusion mediates access to other social determinants of health – directly, through access to and literacy in technologies or services, and indirectly, by supporting people’s capacity to participate fully and equitably in civic and cultural life online. Novel approaches to community-led participatory journalism, in which people from equity-deserving communities are supported to tell their own stories, suggest promising practices for online civic engagement as an emerging approach to promoting health though digital inclusion.

The Impact of Health Geography on Public Health Research, Policy, and Practice in Canada

“…Specifically in practice, health geographers have used population health surveillance by collecting and analyzing health data, health promotion by empowering individuals and communities, and injury and illness prevention through risk reduction efforts, in turn, developing health promotion and protection interventions [ 20 ]. In addition to contributing to disciplinary discussions and debates in geography, the work of health geographers continues to inform the development of recommendations for public health practice and policy [ 84 , 85 ].…”

“…At a larger scale, health geographers are well positioned to address health system strains and health human resource challenges in the Canadian context by undertaking additional research at the interface between public health and health services; for example, into the practice of social prescribing, or community-led referral to services to address needs rooted in the social and environmental determinants of health [ 120 ]. Health geographers are also ideally situated to interrogate the ways in which digital approaches to public health, including online health literacy and artificial intelligence, and the impacts of new technologies on public health (e.g., automated and electrified transportation) have the potential to both mitigate and exacerbate geographic disparities in access to health and health infrastructure [ 85 , 121 , 122 ].…”