Design for Equity in Health Promotion and Rehabilitation: What Engineers Need to Know

Health promotion has evolved from a biomedical focus to a broader paradigm that recognizes social, environmental, political, and digital determinants of health. For engineers developing technologies for health promotion and rehabilitation, this shift requires design approaches that prioritize equity, accessibility, and governance, not only technical performance. This short paper synthesizes milestones from the Ottawa Charter (1986) to the Geneva Charter for Well-being (2021), and translates these principles to the algorithmic environment. It also presents the MERTH framework as a practical, equity-oriented model for the design and evaluation of virtual rehabilitation. The core argument is that engineering for health promotion must move beyond tool-centric innovation toward people-centred, context-aware, and accountable systems.