Digital health systems and inequities: exploring climate and environmental impacts

The digital health community has taken an increased interest in climate and environmental issues. At the same time, and even though equity considerations have been central to digital health for decades, equity-focused approaches to climate and the environment have been less considered. In this commentary, we emphasize the need for equity to remain central to digital health as it shifts to address climate and environment-related challenges. We provided four case examples: electronic waste, early warning systems, digital systems infrastructure vulnerability and artificial intelligence resource use, to demonstrate the climate/environment digital health inequity nexus. We stress that, in not attending to this relationship, the digital transition may amplify rather than reduce inequities associated with climate and environmental challenges. We include a call to action for those in the digital health community to include equity considerations in the planning and designing of digital health solutions and systems aimed at addressing such climate and environmental challenges and beyond.