Y.6.PK.2. Health literacy in the digital age: how do we ensure equity?

Abstract

Abstract   Health systems are rapidly digitalising. People are increasingly expected to use patient portals, apps, telehealth, online information, remote monitoring and AI-enabled tools. Yet digital health literacy is still often treated too narrowly as an individual skill, rather than as a shared responsibility shaped by systems, services, technologies, regulation, communication and support. This workshop will examine how health literacy needs to evolve in the digital age to support equity across European member states and wider global health gradients, including HIC-LMIC, urban-rural and formal-informal health system contexts. It will address populations at risk of exclusion, including people with disabilities, older adults, people with lower incomes or education, migrants and refugees, and people with limited digital access, confidence, language support or trust. The session adds value by linking health literacy, digital health, AI and global health equity. AI-enabled tools may reflect inequities in the data, contexts and populations on which they are developed and validated, with implications for performance across languages, skin tones and clinical settings. Telehealth and platform-based care also raise cross-border issues, including regulatory differences, transnational data flows, and migrants navigating health systems across languages and legal contexts. Digital health literacy, therefore, needs to include the literacy and accountability of systems and clinicians in recognising these limits, not only users’ literacy. The Pecha Kucha-style format will focus on three questions: (1) What should count as digital health literacy when care is mediated by platforms, algorithms and remote communication? (2) How can definitions and measures reflect accessibility, usability, trust, language, human support and system accountability? (3) What principles are needed for internationally useful frameworks that address AI, remote care, One Health communication and global health equity? Three short contributions (6 minutes each) will cover the conceptual foundations; equity and exclusion; systems and services; and future directions for AI, remote care, and One Health. The presentations will be followed by an interactive audience discussion to share perspectives, experiences and reflections, including digital health literacy as a system-shaped equity issue to consider vocabulary; frameworks for addressing accessibility, usability, language, trust, human support and AI-related inequities; and priorities for research, policy, service design and cross-country collaboration, including global health. Expected outcomes are: (1) a refined shared vocabulary for digital health literacy as a system-shaped equity issue; (2) draft principles for inclusive frameworks. The session format will be organised with the WFPHA Working Group on Global Health Equity and Digital Technology and the EUPHA Health Literacy Section. Key messages • Digital health literacy is a shared system responsibility, not only an individual skill; equity depends on usable, trusted and supported digital care. • AI and remote care require global health literacy frameworks that address data inequities, language, cross-border regulation and system accountability. Speakers/Panellists Orkan Okan Technical University of Munich, Munich, Germany Tina Purnat Harvard School of Public Health, Boston, MA, USA Kate Frazer University College Dublin, Dublin, Ireland