Considering the environmental sustainability of digital health requires more than quantitative accounting of greenhouse gas emissions: it requires navigation of complex environmental lifecycle assessments, balancing among different priorities (improved health benefits, patient safety etc), working with uncertainties and ambiguities, accounting for considerations of environmental justice, and exploring pathways for the co-alignment of digital health and the environment. Environmental concerns also need to be balanced alongside other sustainability dimensions, such as social justice and economic factors.
Dr Gabrielle Samuel, Co-director of SHADE research hub
27 November 2023
New research hub launched to explore the intersection of digital technologies, health and the environment
The SHADE research hub has been launched by the School of Global Affairs in partnership with the Ethox Centre in the Nuffield Department of Population Health, University of Oxford.
The SHADE research hub brings together researchers from across the globe with expertise on subjects such as bioethics, sustainability, health policy, ethics of technology and more.
SHADE recognises the increasing demand for AI and digitally enabled health on the one hand, and, on the other hand, the growing desire to consider environmental sustainability.
The hub will be a space to exchange ideas and produce knowledge on issues at the intersection of Sustainability, Health, Artificial Intelligence, Digital technologies and the Environment.
The project is co-led by Dr Gabrielle Samuel, Lecturer in Environment Justice and Health (Department of Global Health & Social Medicine) and Dr Federica Lucivero, Senior Researcher in Ethics and Data at the University of Oxford.
Members of the SHADE research hub are already involved in SHADE funded projects including a localised study of e-waste in India and research into the knowledge, beliefs and attitudes underpinning research ethics in Senegal, Kenya, Egypt and the UK.
SHADE’s research agenda aims to address current challenges, while maintaining a critical eye on promised solutions. We are an interdisciplinary group, with scholars bringing methods and theoretical approaches from bioethics, engineering, sociology, philosophy, law, biomedicine and health policy. But our membership goes beyond academia, it involves stakeholders globally, from policy makers, NGOs, health systems, patients, public and beyond, creating space for them to share ideas.
Dr Federica Lucivero, Co-director of SHADE research hub
The hub is situated within the Department of Global Health & Social Medicine in the School of Global Affairs. It has received funding from the King’s Climate and Sustainability seed fund which aims to stimulate new research on climate and sustainability.
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Lecturer in Environmental Justice and Health