UNSTRUCTURED
Digital health interventions (DHIs) refer to interventions designed to support health-related knowledge transfer and deployed via digital technologies, such as mobile applications (apps) (Soobiah et al., 2020). DHIs are a double-edged sword: they have the potential to reduce health inequalities, for example by making treatments available remotely to rural populations underserved by healthcare facilities or by helping to overcome language barriers via in-app translation services. However, if not designed and deployed with care, DHIs also have the potential to increase health inequalities and exacerbate effects of the digital divide. Patient-level and public health measures delivered digitally therefore need to consider ways to mitigate the digital divide through DHI design, deployment and engagement mechanisms sensitive to the needs of digitally-excluded populations.
This protocol outlines the procedure for a systematic scoping review focussing on features of DHI design and deployment that facilitate (or not) access to and engagement with DHIs by people from demographic groups likely to be affected by the digital divide. The results will have wider implications for researchers and policy makers using DHIs for health improvement peri-pandemic and post-pandemic and will inform best practices in the design and deployment of DHIs.