Mapping Respiratory Health Digital Interventions in South and Southeast Asia: A Scoping Review
Authors: Evans Laura , Evans Jay , Abdullah Adina , Ahmed Zakiuddin ,   The RESPIRE Group
Published: December 2024

Background

Digital health has progressed rapidly due to the advances in technology and the promises of improved health and personal health empowerment. Concurrently, the burden of respiratory disease is increasing, particularly in Asia, where mortality rates are higher, and public awareness and government engagement are lower than in other regions of the world. Leveraging digital health interventions to manage and mitigate respiratory disease presents itself as a potentially effective approach. This study aims to undertake a scoping review to map respiratory digital health interventions in South and Southeast Asia, identify existing technologies, opportunities, and gaps, and put forward pertinent recommendations from the insights gained.

Methods

This study used a scoping review methodology as outlined by Arksey and O’Malley and the Joanna Briggs Institute. Medline, Embase, CINAHL, PsycINFO, Cochrane Library, Web of Science, PakMediNet and MyMedR databases were searched along with key websites grey literature databases.

Results

This scoping review has extracted and analysed data from 87 studies conducted in 14 South and Southeast Asian countries. Results were mapped to the WHO classification of digital health interventions categories to better understand their use. Digital health interventions are primarily being used for communication with patientes and between patients and providers. Moreover, interventions targeting tuberculosis were the most numerous. Many ‘old’ interventions, such as SMS, are still being used but updated. Artificial intelligence and machine learning are also widely used in the region at a small scale. There was a high prevalence of pilot interventions compared to mature ones.

Conclusions

This scoping review collates and synthesises information and knowledge in the current state of digital health interventions, showing that there is a need to evaluate whether a pilot project is needed before starting, there is a need to report on interventions systematically to aid evaluation and lessons learnt, and that artificial intelligence and machine learning interventions are promising but should adhere to best ethical and equity practices.

Author summary

Technology has advanced quickly, facilitating the development of digital health, that is the use of technological tools for health purposes. Digital health tools may help more people achieve better health. At the same time, respiratory diseases are becoming a growing problem, especially in Asia, where there are more deaths and diseases linked to respiratory causes than in other parts of the world. Using digital health tools may be an effective way to manage and reduce the impact of respiratory diseases in the region. To that end, this study reviewed current digital health tools in South and Southeast Asia, identified gaps and opportunities and made recommendations based on the findings. The methodology used was a scoping review, which followed standards as described by Arksey and O’Malley and the Joanna Briggs Institute. It searched relevant medical databases for information. This review includes 87 studies from 14 different countries. It revealed that tuberculosis was the most targeted disease by digital health interventions and that older technologies, such as the SMS, are still being used and updated as needed. Moreover, it revealed that new technologies like artificial intelligence and machine learning are being used more frequently but in small projects and that many of the projects described are small-scale pilot projects.