Abstract

Syndemics are multiple interrelated disease conditions operating on a global scale which have been known to exacerbate the effects of epidemics into pandemics. Because multiple infections are connected to how people access resources they need to stay healthy, a better understanding of how ICTs in global development enable access in low resource environments is needed. In doing so a digital health syndemics model is created to investigate the relationships that co-exist among the different factors that affect the ability of people to stay healthy in low resource environments. The ability of people to stay healthy include IT factors which comprise the ICT for development index, healthcare factors, and syndemic factors comprising mental health and substance abuse. These have implications for the health technology index and how technology may be developed to address these challenges. Two research questions are investigated: What are the effects of IT factors and healthcare factors on the syndemics? What is the relationship between IT factors, healthcare factors and health technology? Through a cross-sectional research design using data for individual variables curated from globally recognized and reliable data sources, the analysis found that higher IT capacity and improved health conditions have a significant positive impact on health. This research contributes to our understanding of how ICTs in global development may support global health while informing theoretical syndemics concepts. This study has policy implications for globally improving the state of socio-determinants of health simultaneously with improvement of information technology factors such as IDI and AI can better healthcare delivery.

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