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Digital Health in East Africa: Innovation, Experimentation and the Market

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  • Tom Neumark
  • Ruth J. Prince

Abstract

Across East Africa, mobile phones and tablets are increasingly sitting in the hands of community health workers, clinicians, managers and patients. They are being used for a widening range of functions from diagnostics to health insurance to treatment advice, generating hopes for new healthcare futures and establishing the region as an emerging hub of experimentation in digital health. Drawing on our on‐going ethnographic and anthropological research in Kenya and Tanzania, this article explores the dynamic, varied, experimental, and increasingly financialised terrain of formal digital health projects. While innovation in digital health is a growing feature of healthcare across the globe, in East Africa it is entering into a region already long characterised by NGOised, fragmented and vertical healthcare systems and heavy dependence on foreign capital. This presents challenges to efforts, including the WHO’s Universal Health Coverage agenda, to foster national and equitable public healthcare systems. In exploring these issues, we recognise the power, and often deleterious effects, of financial capital that foregrounds markets in global digital health, but we also open space for a (still critical) recognition of East African‐led digital and data technology movements.

Suggested Citation

  • Tom Neumark & Ruth J. Prince, 2021. "Digital Health in East Africa: Innovation, Experimentation and the Market," Global Policy, London School of Economics and Political Science, vol. 12(S6), pages 65-74, July.
    • Handle: RePEc:bla:glopol:v:12:y:2021:i:s6:p:65-74
    DOI: 10.1111/1758-5899.12990
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. Benjamin M. Hunter & Susan F. Murray, 2019. "Deconstructing the Financialization of Healthcare," Development and Change, International Institute of Social Studies, vol. 50(5), pages 1263-1287, September.
    2. repec:ucp:bkecon:9780226750248 is not listed on IDEAS
    3. Hampshire, Kate & Mwase-Vuma, Tawonga & Alemu, Kassahun & Abane, Albert & Munthali, Alister & Awoke, Tadesse & Mariwah, Simon & Chamdimba, Elita & Owusu, Samuel Asiedu & Robson, Elsbeth & Castelli, Mi, 2021. "Informal mhealth at scale in Africa: Opportunities and challenges," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 140(C).
    4. Servaas Storm, 2018. "Financialization and Economic Development: A Debate on the Social Efficiency of Modern Finance," Development and Change, International Institute of Social Studies, vol. 49(2), pages 302-329, March.
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    Cited by:

    1. Edgar Cambaza, 2023. "The Role of FinTech in Sustainable Healthcare Development in Sub-Saharan Africa: A Narrative Review," FinTech, MDPI, vol. 2(3), pages 1-17, July.
    2. Neumark, Tom, 2023. "Digital diagnostics from Tanzania: Beyond mere technological fixing?," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 319(C).
    3. Bärnreuther, Sandra, 2023. "Disrupting healthcare? Entrepreneurship as an “innovative” financing mechanism in India's primary care sector," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 319(C).

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