With newer advances in health technology solutions, there are chances of increasing health disparities and health inequity. So to mitigate the increasing gap, community of health informaticians are now using data driven approach, using participatory research before the design and development of any solution so as to address the issue of health disparities and inequity. It is important to understand the cause of disparity before creating any solution.

*LGBT ie sexual and gender minority are an underserved, vulnerable and understudied population. Below mentioned paper talks about containerized, comprehensive, feature-rich, digital platform to support community-engaged longitudinal and cross-sectional digital research studies which would help in understanding the disparity issues in a better way and then come up with a digital solution for reducing health inequity.

A digital health research platform for community engagement, recruitment, and retention of sexual and gender minority adults in a national longitudinal cohort study–—The PRIDE Study.

//www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6696499/

*Below mentioned paper talks about creating e health solution using participatory design approach for women from vulnerable population for the quality of pregnancy care which gets impacted by various cultural and health service obstacles

Participatory design of ehealth solutions for women from vulnerable populations with perinatal depression.

//academic.oup.com/jamia/article/23/1/105/2380123

In the research study titled “A complex culturally targeted intervention to reduce Hispanic disparities in living kidney donor transplantation: an effectiveness-implementation hybrid study protocol” a complex culturally targeted intervention was implemented for Hispanics/Latin Americans in the United States as there is a shortage of organs for kidney transplantation for patients with end-stage renal disease (ESRD) for which Living donor kidney transplantation (LDKT) is the treatment. However, compared to their representation on the transplant waitlist, fewer Hispanics receive a LDKT than non-Hispanic whites. The culturally targeted interventions were designed to reduce Hispanic disparities in LDKT.

Using a prospective effectiveness-implementation hybrid design involving pre-post intervention evaluation with matched controls, complex culturally targeted intervention was implemented at two transplant centers in Dallas and Phoenix. The objective of the study was to evaluate the effect of Northwestern Medicine’s Hispanic Kidney Transplant Program’s (HKTP) key culturally targeted components (outreach, communication, education) on Hispanic LDKT rates over five years. In addition, other process and outcome measures including dialysis patient outreach, education session attendance, marketing efforts, Hispanic patients added to the waitlist, Hispanic potential donors per potential recipient, and satisfaction with culturally competent care was also examined.

To identify moderating factors that affect implementation fidelity, and to identify adaptations that positively and negatively affect outcomes for patients, Consolidated Framework for Implementation Research (CFIR) framework was used to evaluate the fidelity and innovative adaptations to HKTP’s components at both study sites. HKTP is culturally targeted by employing bicultural and bilingual staff, using Spanish in patient/family-provider communications and written materials, and addressing commonly shared Hispanic cultural values, beliefs, misconceptions, and information needs of Hispanic ESRD patients and potential living donors.

//www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5956564/

This paper talks about an equity-based framework for Implementation Research (EquIR) of health programs, policies and systems, which integrates elements of equity-focused implementation research. It further links the population health status before and after implementation and discusses the aspects of health equity before, during and after the implementation with an objective to reduce the existing inequalities.

//equityhealthj.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12939-019-0984-4#Sec10

Research has generated valuable knowledge in identifying, understanding, and intervening to address inequities in the delivery of healthcare, yet these inequities persist. The best available interventions, programs and policies designed to address inequities in healthcare are not being adopted in routine practice settings. Implementation science can help address this gap by studying the factors, processes, and strategies at multiple levels of a system of care that influence the uptake, use, and the sustainability of these programs for vulnerable populations. In the article referred below, they propose that an equity lens can help integrate the fields of implementation science and research that focuses on inequities in healthcare delivery.

Read more: //pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32164706/

While COVID-19 presented and opportunity for digital health innovations to be scaled up and implemented across various sections of healthcare pathways from patient triange, risk screening, digital record keeping, and many other perspectives of COVID-19 prevention and managment, a recent publication by Kondylakis ( //www.jmir.org/2020/12/e23170)  

Highlighted the questionable quality of digtial health research, the review seems to be tip of iceberg and requires a detailed systematic review focussing on accessing quality of digital health literautre pulbished during COVID-19 pandemic. Many journals priortised the publications due to lack of resources, limited staff and making knowledge avilable during pandemic.