The Impact of Digital Tools on Healthcare: Hope, Challenges, and Data

Digital health technologies are quickly becoming a big deal. These tools aim to change how we take care of our health and manage diseases. But putting them into practice isn't always easy. We'll look at how these technologies are imagined, designed, and used, as well as why they sometimes face resistance. Our main point is that these technologies are part of a bigger picture involving data. This data gets created, taken, shared, and even sold, which changes how we relate to each other, machines, and healthcare systems. We'll explore this in three areas: how we think about health and wellness, new ways of providing care, and how health data is turned into numbers and sometimes detached from our bodies.This special issue brings together stories from different places and topics. Together, they ask how digital health tools are shaping the future of healthcare. By focusing on how people think and act, this Special Issue pushes the limits of what we know about digital health and global health. It also urges medical anthropologists and sociologists to pay more attention to how health is going digital.