2. AI and inequalities in medicine and health care: global perspectives
Achim Rosemann, De Montfort University, UK; Xinqing Zhang, Peking Union Medical College
Posted: February 28, 2022 Accepted Languages: English/Inglés/Inglês
The integration of artificial intelligence (AI) in medicine and health care takes place in a context of global inequalities and differences. While AI and data-driven technologies offer possibilities to improve the quality of and access to health services around the world, they also create a range of challenges. These include concerns regarding the reliability, trustworthiness and control of AI; data harvesting, privacy and surveillance; health employment and patient-doctor relations; and access to AI-based and digital medicine.
This panel explores the reconfigurations and problems that arise from the integration and (commercial) use of AI for health in different global contexts, and in relation to the socio-economic, scientific, demographic and health inequalities that shape health-related practices in different countries and world regions.
We welcome contributions that explore aspects of the following questions:
What are the impacts and challenges that emerge from global inequalities and differences on the ways in which AI and data-driven technologies are used in medicine and health care around the world?
Who benefits and who is left out? Does AI reduce the geographic and demographic gaps in access to high-quality care, as is often claimed? Or does it increase existing divides?
What factors influence the adoption, possible benefits, or emergence of specific problems of AI for health across countries? How and why does the situation differ between low-, middle or high-income countries?
What are the implications of answers to these (or similar) questions for debates on the interplay between digital technologies and inequalities in STS?
