Promoting Health and Welfare: The Challenge for Information Technology?

Abstract

The question of how to enable disabled and disadvantaged people via information technology (IT) represents one of the challenges facing most developing countries in the coming decade. Examines the feasibility of, and argues for, an approach to health and welfare promotion centred on the enabling potential of IT. Describes the contextual specificity of the Asian (which is a highly differentiated) experience in state welfare and health provision. Based on some comparative findings and projected scenarios in East Asian countries, explores the challenge and opportunity for IT in this enabling process. The IT‐based promotional strategies are outlined and discussed; it is argued that the effectiveness of IT applications in this process is contingent on the variables embedded in the technology‐‐the risks associated with technological development as well as the underlying socio‐political structure. Ends with remarks on the role of IT in global welfare and health promotion in the 1990s.