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Review
. 2023 Oct 10;6(1):187.
doi: 10.1038/s41746-023-00928-2.

Does clinical research account for diversity in deploying digital health technologies?

Nathan A Coss  1 , J Max Gaitán  2 , Catherine P Adans-Dester  1 , Jessica Carruthers  1 , Manuel Fanarjian  1 , Caprice Sassano  1 , Solmaz P Manuel  3 , Eric Perakslis  1   4
Affiliations
Review

Does clinical research account for diversity in deploying digital health technologies?

Nathan A Coss et al. NPJ Digit Med. .

Abstract

Digital health technologies (DHTs) should expand access to clinical research to represent the social determinants of health (SDoH) across the population. The frequency of reporting participant SDoH data in clinical publications is low and is not known for studies that utilize DHTs. We evaluated representation of 11 SDoH domains in 126 DHT-enabled clinical research publications and proposed a framework under which these domains could be captured and subsequently reported in future studies. Sex, Race, and Education were most frequently reported (in 94.4%, 27.8%, and 20.6% of publications, respectively). The remaining 8 domains were reported in fewer than 10% of publications. Medical codes were identified that map to each of the proposed SDoH domains and the resulting resource is suggested to highlight that existing infrastructure could be used to capture SDoH data. An opportunity exists to increase reporting on the representation of SDoH among participants to encourage equitable and inclusive research progress through DHT-enabled clinical studies.

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Conflict of interest statement

N.A.C., J.M.G., C.P.A.-D., J.C., M.F., C.S.: employees of HumanFirst, Inc. S.P.M.: received support from the Hellman Family Foundation and UCSF Patricia Sander Research Award during the conduct of this study. E.P.: advisor of HumanFirst, Inc.

Figures

Fig. 1
Fig. 1. Relationship between ODPHP and proposed SDoH domains.
Five SDoH domains established by ODPHP (left) were the basis for the 11 SDoH domains (right) used as the benchmark in this analysis.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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