From Evidence-based to Market-based mHealth

Itinerary of a Mobile (for) Development Project

Datos Bibliográficos

ID5337311
AutoresMarine Al Dahdah (0000-0001-7300-9733, Ceped, Paris Descartes University, Paris, France, autor de correspondencia)
Año2019
Volumen44
Número6
Páginas1048-1067
Fecha de publicación2019-11-01
Peer ReviewedSí
Open AccessSí
TipoARTICLE
RevistaScience Technology & Human Values (JOURNAL)
Identificadores de la revistaISSN: 0162-2439 • E-ISSN: 1552-8251
EditorialSAGE Publications Inc (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1177/0162243918824657
OpenAlexW2913304546
IdiomaEN
Citas recibidas7
Referencias citadas18

Information and communication technologies are increasingly used for development in the Global South, and mHealth (health assisted by mobile technologies) plays key role. This paper analyzes the particular relationship to science that characterizes a global maternal mHealth program deployed in Ghana and India. Using science and technology studies (STS), this research relies on qualitative interviews conducted between 2014 and 2016 with funders, implementers, and beneficiaries of this mHealth program. This story begins with a randomized controlled trial, a biomedical experiment with a strong positioning regarding science and the production of evidence. But rapidly the scientific stance disappears to give way to the testing and marketing of a product for the digital economy. From science to market, this paper offers to revisit a classical STS topic through the lens of mHealth. It shows how the various experimental forms taken by this project fundamentally diverge from scientific methods and evidence production and at the same time how it nurtures an ongoing instrumental relationship with science. Thus, from clinical research to product marketing, this paper highlights the tenuous link between evidence-based and market-based mHealth in the Global South

Business · Economic growth · Economics · Health care · Knowledge management · mHealth · New product development · Computer Science · ICT in Developing Communities · Innovation and Socioeconomic Development · Mobile Health and mHealth Applications · Marketing