ArticleJournal of the American Medical Informatics Association : JAMIA2018
Good intentions are not enough: how informatics interventions can worsen inequality.
Article in Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association : JAMIA, 2018. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 400 papers, 11 of them syntheses that pooled it.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
400 citing papers in PubMed, 11 syntheses or guidelines pooled it.
- Ecological Momentary Interventions in the Management of Eating Disorders and Obesity: A Systematic Review.The International journal of eating disorders · 2026Pooled it
- Toward inclusive healthy ageing: a systematic review of equity in healthy ageing interventions.International journal for equity in health · 2026Pooled it
- Patient Concerns Regarding Artificial Intelligence Applications in Health Care: Systematic Review and Meta-Synthesis Based on Social Ecological Theory.Journal of medical Internet research · 2026Pooled it
- Digital health interventions for promoting adults lifestyle behaviors: who is being left behind? An evidence synthesis of social inequality.The international journal of behavioral nutrition and physical activity · 2026Pooled it
- Digital technologies in inpatient foodservice and nutrition care: a systematic scoping review of intake, plate waste, measurement, and implementation.Frontiers in nutrition · 2026Pooled it
- Digital nudging techniques for behaviour change in lifestyle medicine: a scoping review.Frontiers in digital health · 2026Pooled it
- Structural biases in digital health intervention and health equity research: a bibliometric knowledge graph analysis (2015-2025).Frontiers in digital health · 2026Pooled it
- Non-Invasive Telemonitoring in Heart Failure: A Systematic Review.Medicina (Kaunas, Lithuania) · 2025Pooled it
- Sociodemographic and Socioeconomic Determinants for the Usage of Digital Patient Portals in Hospitals: Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis on the Digital Divide.Journal of medical Internet research · 2025Pooled it
- Developing a Comprehensive List of Criteria to Evaluate the Characteristics and Quality of eHealth Smartphone Apps: Systematic Review.JMIR mHealth and uHealth · 2024Pooled it
- Are digital health interventions valuable to support patients with cancer and caregivers? An umbrella review of web-based and app-based supportive care interventions.Cancer medicine · 2023Pooled it
- The ManageHF Just-in-Time Adaptive Mobile App Interventions to Promote Self-Management and Improve Outcomes in Heart Failure: Randomized Controlled Trial.JMIR mHealth and uHealth · 2026Trial
- Multilevel Intervention to Increase Patient Portal Use in Adults With Type 2 Diabetes Who Access Health Care at Community Health Centers: Single Arm, Pre-Post Pilot Study.JMIR formative research · 2025Trial
- Resource Requirements for Participant Enrollment From a University Health System and a Federally Qualified Health Center Network in a Mobile Health Study: The myBPmyLife Trial.Journal of the American Heart Association · 2024Trial
- Quality evaluation of short videos about insomnia on TikTok and Bilibili: A cross-sectional study.Medicine · 2026Article
- AI and the Reproduction of Health Inequity: Redistribution-Translation-Accumulation Framework.Journal of medical Internet research · 2026Article
- Advancing Patient-Centred AI With Adaptive Machine Learning.Cancer medicine · 2026Review
- Precision Prevention for Health: The Global Alliance Framework for the Promotion of Physical Activity.Sports medicine (Auckland, N.Z.) · 2026Article
- Understanding Delivery and Engagement With a Digital Self-Management Intervention for Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease Across Two Clinical Settings: Qualitative Study.JMIR human factors · 2026Article
- Perceptions of Technology and Digital Health Tools Among Recently Incarcerated Adults With Opioid Use Disorder: Semistructured Interview Study.Journal of medical Internet research · 2026Article
340 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
3 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Health informatics interventions are designed to help people avoid, recover from, or cope with disease and disability, or to improve the quality and safety of healthcare. Unfortunately, they pose a risk of producing intervention-generated inequalities (IGI) by disproportionately benefiting more advantaged people. In this perspective paper, we discuss characteristics of health-related interventions known to produce IGI, explain why health informatics interventions are particularly vulnerable to this phenomenon, and describe safeguards that can be implemented to improve health equity. We provide examples in which health informatics interventions produced inequality because they were more accessible to, heavily used by, adhered to, or effective for those from socioeconomically advantaged groups. We provide a brief outline of precautions that intervention developers and implementers can take to guard against creating or worsening inequality through health informatics. We conclude by discussing evaluation approaches that will ensure that IGIs are recognized and studied.
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What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.