DHDI: Digital Community Health Collab

Avoiding the next epidemic, pandemic, infodemic... starts with revising the very basic assumption that poor, illiterate communities are incapable of understanding complex scientific ideas impacting their health. Instead, we need more trust in communities & explanations localized to their needs. From a participant in our pilot on climate change, nutrition & health security in DR Congo: "Before these explanations, I thought that all the problems related to floods are the punishment that God gives us following the sins committed. But I have changed my mind because the explanations are easy to understand." - Female Farmer, South Kivu, Oct 2024

What we are reading this week: AI Governance: A Challenge for Public Health by Wagner et al: "AI Governance Is a Problem for Public Health, Not a Problem About AI." https://lnkd.in/gDFifbS3

Last week, Sonia Navani, DHDI Director, had the incredible opportunity to visit the inspiring work of DHDI partner, CEAFPD, in South Kivu, DR Congo! 🙌 The visit highlighted the amazing collaborative work being done on the ground to build community around climate change, health & women’s digital inclusion. Seeing firsthand how our partnership is making a tangible difference in the community was truly motivating. Thank you to CEAFPD for the warm welcome and hospitality! Together, we’re making meaningful strides towards innovative digital strategies to confront the climate health crisis for everyone-- even for women without mobile phones. (Ask us how...we love that.) #Collaboration #Impact #SustainableDevelopment #CommunityEmpowerment #DigitalLiteracy #ClimateHealth

Digital strategies only work when the science is well understood. What we are reading this week: Rogne et al., 2024 reporting in early pregnancy, a 5°C increase in ambient temperature associated with an increased odds of childhood acute lymphoblastic leukaemia in the US. https://lnkd.in/g6aRzptf

“The fact that Kenya is in a debt trap after decades of following IMF policy prescriptions means that either the IMF is incompetent or it is engaging in intentional economic entrapment.” - Fadhel Kaboub https://lnkd.in/gczk3SmB

What we are reading this week: Sangeeta Banerji's Māndavlī: Negotiating with Digital Governance in Mumbai "This article interrogates the presence and role of “professional complainants”within the municipal bureaucracy of Mumbai. It shows that despite the intention of reducing corruption by doing away with such agents, smart platforms in reality allow for their proliferation." https://lnkd.in/gs3j4cCc

“When you’re getting the public to give their voice for free, will the database of that voice be available for everyone to use for free, to be able to build commercial purposes, or for research purposes, or to build things that people can benefit from?” - Kola Tubosun https://lnkd.in/gKGxWEm8

Conversations around AI risks are important but frequently eclipse the larger picture-- and end up being conversation stoppers (e.g., tech companies are too powerful for us to do anything...they don't let us in...). Instead, dig in. Redesign the risks. Redesign the systems.

Ong et al on the important and unique case of LLMs --requiring a different set of guardrails than previously deployed health AI. https://lnkd.in/gY2wxkkq