Though digital health companies make astounding promises about their apps' and products' abilities to improve outcomes across the board, in reality, they often help only the most privileged patients.
In a recent op-ed for TechCrunch, Sarah Lisker, a program manager at the University of California San Francisco's Center for Vulnerable Populations, described how health tech companies' promises have gone largely unmet for anyone besides the "worried well" — that is, those who are already relatively healthy and engaged with the health system.
"If we're designing health apps for those who already have access to healthcare, nutritious food, clean air to breathe and stable housing, we're missing the point," Ms. Lisker wrote. She explained that this disparity stems largely from the fact that the majority of clinical trial subjects and app testers are white, young and male.
"While the private sector is great for innovation, it will fail to improve health in a meaningful way without real-world evidence generated in partnership with diverse patients," she wrote. If these partnerships are developed, however, digital health companies stand a real chance of achieving improved outcomes for the entire population, rather than only for a chosen few.
Ms. Lisker concluded, "To truly revolutionize health, let's demand that technology creators and scalers include diverse end users early and often. Otherwise, the app 'for that' will be for them, not for all of us."
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