Jay Shaw and team receive funding to advance health data justice for AI technologies
Jay Shaw, an Assistant Professor in the Department of Physical Therapy at the University of Toronto, and a team of researchers have received a grant from Open Research Area 8, a large competition co-funded by research funders in Canada, the United Kingdom, Germany and France, for their research, Advancing health data justice: A comparative study of health-related data governance in Canada, Germany, and the United Kingdom.
Shaw, who serves as the Research Director of Artificial Intelligence (AI), Ethics & Health at the Joint Centre for Bioethics, says the “aim of this project is to develop the idea of health data justice – an approach to health data governance, which refers to rules and decisions about how data are generated, and who gets access and how.”
Health data justice specifically aims to ensure health data governance decisions are informed by the needs, experiences, and wishes of structurally marginalized communities.
This work will help to inform the way that health data are used for AI research and development. Shaw and his team will explore policies, conduct interviews, and engage communities in Canada, the United Kingdom and Germany. Comparing across these countries will make it possible to build new insights on health data justice and explore practical possibilities for its implementation. Outputs from the project will include a guidebook and open webinars outlining health data justice and pathways for its implementation in health care and public health.
At a time when AI technologies are becoming increasingly popular in health care, decisions about who can use which kinds of data to build AI technologies are more important than ever. When those decisions are informed by members of structurally marginalized communities with social justice in mind, AI technologies are more likely to promote health equity and social justice for all.
Shaw, the Principal Investigator, and his co-researchers will receive funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) and local funders in the United Kingdom and Germany for a total of $2.3 million.