Digital health for shared value
A critique of legal infrastructures in a post-colonial context
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 12890132 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Sharifah Sekalala (0000-0002-5434-5245, University of Warwick, corresponding author), Tatenda Chatikobo (0000-0003-2936-7415, University of Warwick) |
| Year | 2026 |
| Volume | 22 |
| Issue | 1 |
| Pages | 11-24 |
| Publication date | 2026-01-02 |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | International Journal of Law in Context (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 1744-5523 • E-ISSN: 1744-5531 |
| Publisher | Cambridge University Press (CUP) (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.1017/s1744552325100359 |
| OpenAlex | W7117958675 |
| Language | EN |
| References cited | 40 |
The promise of digitalisation in achieving Universal Health Coverage in postcolonial contexts is undermined by the realities of insufficiently resourced public healthcare systems. In response, private health insurance is often seen as essential to healthcare delivery. The provision of this private health insurance is increasingly mediated through digital infrastructures, with providers leaning into the promise of data-driven behavioural economics to provide better and more efficient services. While an increasing number of studies focus on digital health, in this paper, we particularly focus on the less-explored question of how datafication – under the veil of shared value, and enabled by forms of legal access – reproduces inequalities. Using the case study of Discovery, a financial services company in South Africa providing health insurance, we analyse how a social value and data-driven behavioural economic model of health insurance commodifies health and wellness. We argue that legal infrastructures are central to this commodification. Through a socio-legal critique of digital health, our article makes an original contribution to broader debates on enduring postcolonial social inequalities by illustrating how infrastructural injustice manifest through datafication
Context (archaeology · Digital health · Health care · Inequality · Injustice · Public health · Social inequality · Value (mathematics · COVID-19 Digital Contact Tracing · ICT in Developing Communities · Telemedicine and Telehealth Implementation
The Costs of Connection
Infrastructure
Challenges of quality improvement in the healthcare of South Africa post-apartheid
Health and Health Care in South Africa — 20 Years after Mandela
Datafication
Pandemic Solutionism
Colonialism in the new digital health agenda
The Dangers of Data Colonialism in Precision Public Health
Towards a Public Law Perspective on the Constitutional Law of Privacy in South Africa in the Age of Digitalization
The Influence of Racial Differences in the Demand for Healthcare in South Africa
A socio-political history of South Africa’s National Health Insurance
Infrastructures and Laws
Meta-Surveillance in the Digital Enclosure
Health care as an instrument of Apartheid policy in South Africa
A socio-legal critique of the commercialization of digital health in Sub-Saharan Africa
Apartheid and the causes of death
In the name of Development
Data colonialism
The value of sharing
Private medicine and the privatisation of health care in South Africa
The Moral Limits of Predictive Practices
Risk, value, vitality
Meaningless work
Elder Care and Private Health Insurance in South Africa
| Highly cited | No |
|---|