Ethical and Information Governance Considerations for Promoting Digital Social Interventions in Primary Care

Abstract

Promoting online peer support beyond the informal sector to statutory health services requires ethical considerations and evidence-based knowledge about its impact on patients, health care professionals, and the wider health care system. Evidence on the effectiveness of digital interventions in primary care is sparse, and definitive guidance is lacking on the ethical concerns arising from the use of social media as a means for health-related interventions and research. Existing literature examining ethical issues with digital interventions in health care mainly focuses on apps, electronic health records, wearables, and telephone or video consultations, without necessarily covering digital social interventions, and does not always account for primary care settings specifically. Here we address the ethical and information governance aspects of undertaking research on the promotion of online peer support to patients by primary care clinicians, related to medical and public health ethics.

Public Health Governance Policy Optimization Based on Health Big Data

“…Common health big data governance theories mainly include: transparency and privacy protection. [5] Transparency refers to the process of collecting and processing health big data to ensure the transparency of the source and use of the data, i.e., clearly informing affected parties about the purpose of data acquisition and following the principles of data protection. Privacy protection is important for preserving the rights and interests of individuals, including anonymization or de-identification processing, data security measures, and authorization-only access, etc., data security and risk management.…”