The Lancet and Financial Times Commission on Governing Health Futures 2030: Growing up in a digital world report advocates for better digital and data governance to enhance the well-being of young individuals and facilitate the achievement of Sustainable Development Goals. The Commission identified four action areas to shape health futures in a digital world: recognizing digital technologies as determinants of health, building trust in the digital health ecosystem, promoting data solidarity, investing in digitally transformed health systems. These actions aim to address health inequalities, protect individual rights, and prioritize public good in the context of digital health.
Now is the time to put the Commission’s recommendations into practice.
Breakthrough technologies are developing at a rapid pace. Innovations such as artificial intelligence, mobile apps, metaverse and virtual reality will significantly impact societies worldwide, in turn shaping people's health and well-being. A better future for the younger generation is in our hands, but it requires smart governance of the digital revolution. We know from history that for technological progress to be sustainable, sound policies and equitable distribution of benefits are needed. Digital innovations must be in line with human values. They must be created ethically and transparently. They must serve the social good and strengthen democracies.
To make these principles and values the foundation of a better and healthier digital future, DTH-Lab will: combine cutting-edge research, strengthen youth leadership, drive innovations in policy and practice, shift public and political agendas in order toput young people at the centre of digital-first health systems; advance value-based governance of digital transformations in health; address digital determinants of health.
For young people’s health and well-being to thrive in an age of digital transformations, and to accelerate public health and UHC, the Commission recommends that policymakers and other stakeholders take action in three areas:
Young people need to be enfranchised to co-design and critically engage with digital first health systems as part of efforts to increase public participation and digital health citizenship.
A mission-oriented, precautionary, and value-based approach to digital and data governance is needed to build public trust in digital health ecosystems, address the unequal distribution of power and resources within and between countries and close digital divides. Whilst governance frameworks across the world will continue to be shaped by diverse contexts, political systems and sociocultural norms, all approaches should be grounded in a common set of universal values. Specifically, any tension between health and digital transformations should be resolved in favour of the core values of ‘Health for All’ and the SDGs: democracy, equity, solidarity, inclusion and human rights.
Policymakers and other actors must recognise the digital ecosystem as an increasingly important determinant of health, establish governance frameworks and regulatory responses in response to the direct and indirect DDoH, and close critical evidence gaps on the effects of DDoH and well-being.
