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Social determinants of Health and ICT for Health (eHealth) conceptual framework

November 9, 2011

Lately I have been designing, launching and gathering an online panel survey to a representative sample of Internet users in 14 European countries (approximately 14,000 responses). To ground the questionnaire I have developed a conceptual framework inspired and based on the two main sources. On the one hand, the Marmot Review team:

On the other hand, a Framework for Digital Divide Research developed by Jan van Dijk in several publications:

In a recent presentation about Health and Web 2.0 I tried to match both frameworks and I have posted about Inverse care law 2.0  several times using different scientific and statistical sources.  It is worth pointing out (and obviously reasonable) that I have not found any references or mentions to ICT for Health in the literature about social determinants of Health gathered through Marmot Review team website.

a-conceptual-framework-for-action-on-the-social-determinants-of-health-discussion-paper-for-the-commission-on-social-determinants-of-health

However, both frameworks (see red boxes in both figures) mention individual and social characteristics as social determinants of health and of the Internet usage. Furthermore, van Dijk includes HEALTH and ABILITY as a personal category (and I have added Health as a sphere of participation in Society and emphasis the Divides).

deeping-digital-divide

Based on and inspired by this two frameworks I have developed Social determinants of Health and ICT for Health (eHealth) conceptual framework.

social-determinants-of-health-and-ict-for-health-conceptual-framework

All concepts and boxes  of this framework are based on scientific references and the relationships established by arrows have been empirical or theoretical driven. I’m currently working on it, however I have shared this framework to gather inputs to improve it. I would love to know your comments and ideas.

UPDATE: Citizens and ICT for Health in 14 EU countries: results from an online panel survey