Paper short abstract:

Over the last thirty years, global health has evolved in different ways without a coherent logic emerging. This paper suggests a critical reexamination of some of the key foci/motives that have guided and legitimized interventions in Global Health.

Paper long abstract:

Over the last thirty years, Global Health has evolved in diverse ways rather than presenting itself as operating with a coherent logic. This paper suggests a critical reexamination of some of the major foci/motives that have guided and legitimized interventions in Global Health. Ranging from military parlance, ‘magic bullets’ approaches and disease-specific interventions to more current frameworks like e.g. collaborative health, the paper contents that current agendas emphasis structural issues of collaboration over content and issues of health care. This raises the important question as to whether and how inclusive (mega-)collaborations (e.g. Global Action Plan for Health (WHO)) can be researched in a meaningful way? What we will term collaboratories of health suggest a critical perspective on the inscribed labor that is involved in doing and working together in health and health services. In course of the argument the paper will also situate promises and practices of digital health within these new configurations of working togetherr for (Global) health.

Paper short abstract:

This paper is an examination of the multifaceted role of artificial intelligence (AI) in malaria prevention and control within Ghana, addressing current landscapes, challenges, and opportunities while underscoring ethical considerations.

Paper long abstract:

In this paper, I embark on an insightful exploration into the multifaceted realm of artificial intelligence (AI) and its pivotal role in malaria control strategies within the context of Ghana. I present a thorough evaluation of the existing landscapes, challenges, and opportunities, providing a comprehensive understanding of the intricate dynamics shaping the current state of malaria research in Ghana. Despite commendable progress in biomedical research, the persistent threat of malaria demands continued attention. The global landscape is witnessing the burgeoning promise of AI integration in malaria prevention, serving as a catalyst for innovative solutions. The paper dissects the applications of AI in critical domains, encompassing malaria diagnosis, drug discovery, vector control, and epidemiological forecasting. A distinctive facet of this paper lies in its reliance on an illuminating interview with Lucas Amenga-Etego, a distinguished scientist from WACCBIP. By delving into this insightful conversation, the paper scrutinizes the profound influence of AI on intervention and control plans, unraveling layers of strategic implications. Elevating the discourse, the paper accentuates ethical considerations and socio-cultural nuances inherent in the integration of AI into Ghana's healthcare landscape. The imperative need for robust ethical frameworks is underscored, marking a conscientious approach to technology adoption. In a forward-looking culmination, the paper charts the unexplored territories of future potentials, offering sagacious recommendations to policymakers, researchers, and healthcare practitioners. This exploration transcends geographical boundaries, beckoning a collaborative effort to shape a future where the fusion of AI and healthcare not only addresses immediate challenges in Ghana but resonates globally.

Paper short abstract:

To reduce health disparities in Ghana, this study investigates how digital health technologies have influenced rural women of reproductive age's access to and use of healthcare services. It aims to understand how the introduction of drones, has tended to reduce health inequalities.

Paper long abstract:

The third Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) seeks to ensure healthy lives and promote well-being for all ages. One way to attain healthy lives and promote well-being is through access to and use of healthcare services amongst the population. However, the utilization of healthcare services among women of reproductive age particularly in the rural area remains low and inadequate. Access to and use of healthcare services, particularly for children and pregnant women, continue to be major public health concerns. This study explores how digital health technologies have shaped access to and utilization of healthcare services amongst rural women of reproductive age to reduce health inequalities in Ghana. Results showed that the introduction of digital technologies such as drones, has tended to reduce health inequalities between women living in rural areas and urban areas. To save and enhance the lives of women of reproductive age, it is more likely that poor and uneducated women in rural areas will have access to essential medications that are transported to medical facilities during deliveries or emergencies.

Paper short abstract:

My paper is an ethnography of temporalities of Zipline’s drone center in Vobsi, Ghana, exploring how daily delivery practices are shaped by technologies, aiming to satisfy the customer’s needs in terms of facilitating on-time procedures, desired quality and nominal operational outcomes.

Paper long abstract:

Since 2019, the U.S. company Zipline employs autonomous aerial vehicles (i.e., drones) to deliver blood products and other essential medical goods to communities in Ghana. For this purpose, Zipline is operating six distribution centers in Ghana whose catchment areas cover most of the country. The use of drones is supposed to supply areas that are hard-to-reach as well as expected to support the medical supply chains of the Last Mile Distribution scheme which solely rely on ground transportation. Existing research has paid little attention to the role of temporality within the scope of Zipline’s operations, which notably involve emergency deliveries, and how the promise of on-time deliveries structures their daily routines and practices. My paper examines this gap by analyzing manifestations of temporality in Zipline’s distribution center in Vobsi, North East Region, and how these temporalities are shaped by an assemblage of human operators, digital technologies, the West-African seasons, and standard operating procedures. To do so, my paper draws on more than two months of ethnographic research in Zipline’s distribution center in Vobsi in 2022 and 2023, during which I conducted participant observation and extensive semi-structured interviews with fulfillment operators, flight operators, community managers, facility administrators, and support staff. The aim of my research is to explore how daily practices in Vobsi are shaped by technologies, in particular the fulfillment system, and how the use of technologies is intended to satisfy the customer’s needs in terms of facilitating on-time procedures, desired quality and nominal operational outcomes.

Paper short abstract:

Digital living promise to transform and reconfigure healthcare systems and citizens health futures. In Africa, leveraging on digital entanglements notably drones promise not only to reconfigure healthcare systems but usher in a new paradigm of precision public health.

Paper long abstract:

As healthcare systems experience an unprecedented transformative digital revolution, their entanglement with digital health solutions and technologies cannot be overstated. Embracing digitalisation is thought to enable healthcare systems, especially in the Global South, to overcome decades-long infrastructural challenges, improve healthcare access and quality, and drive sustainable development. In Africa, the digital health solutions and technologies have ushered in a digital scramble to redress the continent’s burden of disease and mortality. The centrality of innovative healthcare delivery is thus anchored in digital health solutions and technologies such as drones. As nation-states experiment and invest in these digital health solutions and technologies health futures are rapidly becoming entangled with, and reconfiguring, health access as a public good. With emphasis on efficiency and targeting to optimize resource use, nation-states like Malawi and Ghana are increasingly anchoring these digital technologies towards a new paradigm of precision public healthcare. Drones as transformative strategies for timely access to critical care and novel healthscapes forming new sociotechnical imaginaries. Through drones, rhetoric on precision public health offers health actors technical solutions to complex problems and promises of data-driven futures free of uncertainty, suffering and inefficient use of resources is nurtured.

In our paper, we suggest and develop the concept of “precision public health”. Using ethnographic insights from our research on medical drones in Malawi and Ghana in addressing maternal mortality, lack of access to diagnostic care and vaccines to target populations in remote settings. We explore the rise of precision public health as they reconfigure health in Africa.