A View to the Future , by Trevor Hancock and CPRN researcher, Philip Groff. The Director of CPRN's Health Network, Sholom Glouberman, says it's crucial to look beyond the impact of IT on health technologies, themselves, for a true measure of its effect on health. A person's social status, their level of education, the degree of control they have over their work - these are the factors that have the greatest impact on health. So, when we look for the health impact of the IT revolution we need to look at how it affects these areas of experience. The broader influences on health include the changing role of the state in the globalized era, the shifting boundary between public and private space, new concepts of community, independence and control and, above all, movement towards or away from social equality.
Information technologies can reduce social inequality.
They can break down barriers to information, provide access to expert advice, enhance individual independence. The choice is ours. If we ignore these concerns the democratic potential of the new technologies will be more myth than reality. There is an empirical and direct relationship between social inequality and inequality of health outcomes. Public policy will determine whether IT empowers citizens to participate more fully in decisions about health and health care and, indeed, in decisions in all areas of their lives.