Inadequate Privacy Research Articles

Providers and women’s perspectives on opportunities, challenges and recommendations to improve cervical cancer screening in women living with HIV at Mbarara Regional Referral Hospital: a qualitative study

BackgroundCervical cancer screening uptake remains low despite being a critical prevention method for adult women living with HIV(WLHIV). These women experience greater incidence and persistence of high-risk human papillomavirus (HPV) and severe outcomes, including cervical cancer comorbidity and death.ObjectiveWe explored the opportunities, challenges, and recommendations of clinical care providers and WLHIV to improve cervical cancer screening uptake among WLHIV in Southwestern Uganda.MethodsIn a cross-sectional qualitative study from January to June 2021 at Mbarara Regional Referral Hospital, we interviewed six key informant clinical care providers and held four focus group discussions with women living with HIV. Data was coded using Atlas ti software and analysed using thematic inductive analysis.ResultsThe participants identified several prevailing opportunities for cervical cancer screening, including skilled clinical care workers, public awareness for demand creation, optimized clinic flow, provider-led referrals, and peer-led information sharing that ease clinic navigation and shorten participant throughput. However, challenges occurred due to standalone services resulting in double queuing, longer clinic visit hours, missed chances for screening alongside unsupported lower health facilities leading to crowding at the referral hospital, and inadequate patient privacy measures leading to shame and stigma and the misconception that cervical cancer is incurable. Integrating HPV-DNA testing in HIV services was perceived with ambivalence; some participants worried about the quality of sample collection, while others valued the privacy it offered. Optimising self-collected DNA testing and sufficient counselling were recommended to improve cervical cancer screening uptake.ConclusionOpportunities for cervical cancer screening included trained clinical care professionals, increased public awareness, improved clinic flow, provider referrals, and peer education. Challenges, such as unsupported lower-level health facilities, misconceptions, inadequate patient privacy, and uncertainty about integrating HPV-DNA screening into HIV services, were cited. Adequate counselling and self-sample collection were recommended to foster screening. Our findings may guide healthcare programs integrating cervical cancer screening into HIV clinics to reach the 70% World Health Organisation targets by 2030.

Health service providers’ perspective on barriers and strategies to tuberculosis treatment adherence in Obuasi Municipal and Obuasi East District in the Ashanti region, Ghana: a qualitative study

Abstract Background Despite the substantial improvement in treatment success rate over the past two decades in Ghana, some districts in the country still record high rates of tuberculosis (TB) deaths and lost-to-follow-up. The high incidence of these adverse outcomes suggests that the TB programme is not performing well in these districts which could be due to some barriers in the programme implementation. This paper explored the perspectives of healthcare providers on the barriers to TB treatment adherence and the potential strategies to address them in two high-burden districts in the Ashanti Region of Ghana. Methods This study utilised an explorative qualitative study design among 16 purposively selected healthcare providers directly involved in TB care in the Obuasi Municipal and Obuasi East District. Key informant interviews were used to collect data, which were audio-recorded and transcribed word-for-word. The transcriptions were then imported into Atlas.ti version 8.4 software for thematic content analysis. Results Findings from this study revealed significant socioeconomic and individual barriers to TB treatment adherence. Key socioeconomic barriers included income insecurity, transportation cost, food insecurity, lack of public education on TB and frequent shortage of TB diagnostic tools. The individual barriers identified were misconception of TB causation, perceived full recovery after intensive phase treatment, inadequate patient privacy and noncompliance to treatment transfer protocol. The strategies recommended by healthcare providers to address these barriers were home-based treatment, provision of food incentives, frequent education on TB, and usage of reminder systems for follow-ups. Conclusion The barriers to TB treatment adherence from the healthcare providers’ perspective were mainly socioeconomic and individual. The suggested strategies offer actionable steps towards addressing these barriers. Thus, it is recommended that the TB programme and other supporting stakeholders take into account these barriers and adopt these strategies when planning for TB control to enhance treatment adherence and improve patient health outcomes.

The Internet of Things (IoT) in World Practice: Review and Analysis

This article explores the contemporary realm of the Internet of Things (IoT) and its influence on society and the economy. The primary emphasis lies in examining the principal patterns within the realm of IoT, encompassing the escalation of connected device quantities and the utilisation of 5G networks. The article encompasses various facets, including an overview of the evolution and possibilities of IoT, encompassing the advancement of intelligent urban areas and the influence of 5G networks. The analysis of threats and vulnerabilities related to this technology focuses on detecting common flaws, including weak passwords, unsecured network services, and inadequate privacy measures.
 Furthermore, the essay presents concrete hazards in diverse sectors that employ IoT technology. Particular emphasis is given to potential cybersecurity vulnerabilities in healthcare, manufacturing, agriculture, retail, transport and logistics, energy, and smart cities. These businesses have distinct challenges and hazards due to incorporating IoT technologies.
 The authors also analyse the substantial financial commitment to IoT and its profound influence on the worldwide economy, including data on the expansion of the IoT market and investments in IoT technologies and smart cities. The findings emphasise that the Internet of Things (IoT) substantially influences society and the economy. However, it necessitates meticulous consideration of cybersecurity and privacy concerns. The authors underscore the significance of creating efficacious cyber security policies to safeguard against the possible hazards presented by IoT technology.
 
 

Privacy Concerns in Digital Journalism: Balancing Transparency and Ethical Reporting

This study investigates the ethical dimensions of digital journalism with a focus on privacy, aiming to shed light on the challenges faced by journalists in balancing transparency with the protection of individual privacy rights. A qualitative analysis was conducted, incorporating case studies and an examination of legal frameworks to understand the ethical dilemmas digital journalists encounter. Additionally, established best practices were analyzed to ascertain effective strategies for addressing privacy concerns. The study revealed that journalists encounter multifaceted ethical challenges when handling personal information. Case studies underscored instances where inadequate privacy considerations led to real-world harm. Legal frameworks, including GDPR and COPPA, impose responsibilities on journalists to responsibly handle personal data. In conclusion, this study underscores the critical role of ethical reporting in the digital journalism landscape. By prioritizing privacy considerations, journalists can navigate the complex landscape, ensuring that their work upholds both journalistic integrity and individual privacy rights.

Towards a Universal Privacy Model for Electronic Health Record Systems: An Ontology and Machine Learning Approach

This paper proposed a novel privacy model for Electronic Health Records (EHR) systems utilizing a conceptual privacy ontology and Machine Learning (ML) methodologies. It underscores the challenges currently faced by EHR systems such as balancing privacy and accessibility, user-friendliness, and legal compliance. To address these challenges, the study developed a universal privacy model designed to efficiently manage and share patients’ personal and sensitive data across different platforms, such as MHR and NHS systems. The research employed various BERT techniques to differentiate between legitimate and illegitimate privacy policies. Among them, Distil BERT emerged as the most accurate, demonstrating the potential of our ML-based approach to effectively identify inadequate privacy policies. This paper outlines future research directions, emphasizing the need for comprehensive evaluations, testing in real-world case studies, the investigation of adaptive frameworks, ethical implications, and fostering stakeholder collaboration. This research offers a pioneering approach towards enhancing healthcare information privacy, providing an innovative foundation for future work in this field.

Telepsychiatry in an Era of Digital Mental Health Startups.

Telepsychiatry practiced by psychiatrists is evidence-based, regulated, private, and effective in diverse settings. The use of telemedicine has grown since theCOVID-19 pandemic as people routinely obtain more healthcare services online. At the same time, there has been a rapid increase in the number of digital mental health startups that offer various services including online therapy and access to prescription medications. These digital mental health firms advertise directly to the consumer primarily through digital advertising. The purpose of this narrative review is to contrast traditional telepsychiatry and the digital mental health market related to online therapy. In contrast to standard telepsychiatry, most of the digital mental health startups are unregulated, have unproven efficacy, and raise concerns related to self-diagnosis, self-medicating, and inappropriate prescribing. The role of digital mental health firms for people with serious mental illness has not been determined. There are inadequate privacy controls for the digital mental health firms, including for online therapy. We live in an age where there is widespread admiration for technology entrepreneurs and increasing emphasis on the role of the patient as a consumer. Yet, the business practices of digital mental health startups may compromise patient safety for profits. There is a need to address issues with the digital mental health startups and to educate patients about the differences between standard medical care and digital mental health products.

The mental and maternal health of women in flood-affected areas in Pakistan: a call for action

The mental and maternal health of women in flood-affected areas in Pakistan: a call for action

PLDP-FL: Federated Learning with Personalized Local Differential Privacy

As a popular machine learning method, federated learning (FL) can effectively solve the issues of data silos and data privacy. However, traditional federated learning schemes cannot provide sufficient privacy protection. Furthermore, most secure federated learning schemes based on local differential privacy (LDP) ignore an important issue: they do not consider each client's differentiated privacy requirements. This paper introduces a perturbation algorithm (PDPM) that satisfies personalized local differential privacy (PLDP), resolving the issue of inadequate or excessive privacy protection for some participants due to the same privacy budget set for all clients. The algorithm enables clients to adjust the privacy parameters according to the sensitivity of their data, thus allowing the scheme to provide personalized privacy protection. To ensure the privacy of the scheme, we have conducted a strict privacy proof and simulated the scheme on both synthetic and real data sets. Experiments have demonstrated that our scheme is successful in producing high-quality models and fulfilling the demands of personalized privacy protection.

Postnatal care services in rural Zambia: a qualitative exploration of user, provider, and community perspectives on quality of care

BackgroundPostnatal care (PNC) is an important set of services offered to the mother and her newborn baby immediately after birth for the first six weeks to prevent maternal and neonatal complications and death. This qualitative study explored user and provider perspectives on quality of PNC services in the selected health facilities within the context of the Maternity Homes Access in Zambia project in the Saving Mothers Giving Life districts in rural Zambia.MethodsBetween October 2018 and February 2019, forty focus group discussions (FGDs) (n = 160 participants) and twelve in-depth interviews (IDIs) were conducted in four districts in Southern and Eastern provinces. FGDs comprised women who delivered within the last year, fathers, community elders, and volunteers. IDIs comprised health workers at facility, district, and provincial levels. Data were analysed using content analysis guided by the international quality of care domains derived from the World Health Organization quality of care framework. Findings were triangulated to understand perceptions.ResultsOverall, study participants perceived PNC services to be beneficial. Nevertheless, respondents had mixed feelings on the quality of PNC services and expressed a stark difference in their perception of factors affecting service quality. Service users described challenges arising from ineffective communication about the new PNC guidelines, and non-adherence of service providers to quality standards regarding respect, preservation of dignity and emotional support. Other factors were long waiting hours, small examination rooms providing inadequate privacy, and low levels of confidentiality. In contrast, service providers attributed poor service quality to various health system-related factors including low staffing levels, dysfunctional referral services, low supply of essential medicines, supplies, vaccines and equipment for optimal routine emergency obstetric and newborn care and management of complications.ConclusionThese findings highlight important intervention opportunities to improve quality of PNC services in Zambia through better communication and raising awareness on PNC guidelines, respect, preservation of dignity and emotional support to mothers. Interventions should also focus on addressing contextual health system challenges including staffing levels, supply chain for essential medicines and commodities, shortening waiting time, and ensuring functional referral system.

Implementation of Management Decisions for the Implementation of Blockchain Technologies in Public Authorities

In recent years, there has been growing interest in blockchain-based operating systems from computer science, economics, and law, but the literature is still in its infancy. The public sector is becoming an area of application for blockchain technology, with governments and others having published more than 200 examples of its use worldwide. However, despite the growing interest, actual implementation of blockchain-based technologies and systems in public administration remains limited. Previous studies have highlighted a number of challenges associated with its implementation, including inadequate regulation, security and privacy issues, lack of interoperable infrastructure, inefficient and energy-intensive transactions, the need for changes in administrative processes, and ultimately, the lack of effective governance models. The purpose of this paper is to identify what management decisions need to be made for the development of blockchain technologies and systems in public authorities and how different contextual factors in public sector affect the available options for blockchain governance. The literature review showed that managerial decisions regarding the use of blockchain in public institutions need to be defined at different levels. At the same time, all these levels are not independent levels of blockchain management, but interrelated ones. It was defined, that blockchain governance in public authorities includes different solutions related to decision mechanisms, incentive mechanisms, consensus building mechanisms, organization, accountability, and management control. Several important conclusions were drawn for system developers and decision makers interested in applying blockchain solutions in public administration. First, politicians and system developers need to consider the interrelationships between levels of public administration and assess the impact of decisions at one level on other levels of public administration. Second, the state current frameworks in a particular sector (e.g., health, security, education, etc.) may influence the choice of a particular blockchain-based governance option. Third, the implementation of blockchain-based systems and technologies in public administration depends on the level of public trust in government. Therefore, further research is needed to clarify the relationship between trust in public institutions and the political choice to build a blockchain-based governance structure.

Measuring Potential Visual Exposure of Physicians During Shift-End Handoffs and Its Impact on Interruptions, Privacy, and Collaboration.

Frequent interruptions, inadequate privacy, and lack of collaboration are barriers to safe and efficient end-of-shift handoffs between emergency physicians. Varying levels of visibility to and from physicians can impact these outcomes. This study quantifies potential visual exposure of physicians in workstations with varying enclosure levels using isovist connectivity (IC) as a measure. Further, this study examines the association of IC with number of interruptions/hour, perceived collaboration, and privacy during handoffs. In-person observations were conducted during 60 handoffs to capture interruptions. Surveys were administered to the incoming and outgoing physicians to garner their perceptions of the extent of interruptions, collaboration, and privacy. Spatial analysis was conducted using DepthmapX. Findings demonstrate significant differences in IC scores based on (a) physicians location within the workstation during; (b) handoff approach (individual or collaborative); (c) position during handoff (sitting or standing). Documented interruptions were highest in the high IC locations and lowest in the medium and low IC locations. Physicians in low IC locations perceived to have sufficient privacy to conduct handoffs. It should be noted that the three pods, each housing a physician workstation with different enclosure levels, varied in number of patient rooms, patient acuity, overall size, and the location of workstations. While contextual variables were considered to the extent possible, several other factors could have resulted in differences in number of interruptions and collaboration levels. This study provides design recommendations for handoff locations and a method to test emergency physician workstation designs prior to construction.

Behind open doors: Patient privacy and the impact of design in primary health care, a qualitative study in Indonesia.

The importance and attention to patient privacy in recent decades have been directed mostly toward medical data protection in electronic means. Hence, other aspects of patients' privacy were overlooked, particularly in the primary health care (PHC) level. In the attempt of many countries, including Indonesia, to strive toward universal healthcare provision, a strong and accessible PHC is essential. This situation may create a tension in privacy provision where patients who need to disclose secrets may opt for other facilities, such as hospitals. This study aimed to describe and discuss patients' and doctors' perspectives and experiences about privacy in PHC in Indonesia, particularly since the universal coverage started. We used in-depth interviews and observations to gather information. Inductive and thematic data analyses were conducted. We interviewed PHC users (n = 17), doctors (n = 16), other PHC staff (n = 7), and non-PHC users (n = 5) and observed the PHC activities. We found that privacy is imperative for both patients and doctors. Design and conditions in PHC, including consultation room doors open, separate rooms for treatment, and patients' symptoms asked by other staff were aspects that undermine privacy in PHC. Inadequate physical and informational privacy protection during a patient's visit has affected the quality of care negatively in ways that impede proper anamneses and physical examination. Ensuring patients' and doctors' physical and informational privacy is essential to creating PHC as the primary source of care that responds to the privacy values of its users, but it has been overlooked. The PHC building designs and care provision guidelines should incorporate the privacy needs of patients and doctors.

Incentive EMR Sharing System Based on Consortium Blockchain and IPFS.

Electronic medical records (EMRs) are extremely private data in the medical industry. Clinicians use the patient data that the EMR stores to quickly assess a patient’s status and save diagnostic information. In the conventional medical model, it is easy for duplicate exams, medical resource waste, or the loss of medical records to happen when a patient is transferred between several medical facilities due to problems with data sharing and exchange, inadequate data privacy, security, confidentiality, and difficulties with data traceability. This paper recommends a Hyperledger Fabric-based strategy to promote the exchange of EMR models. With the use of Hyperledger Fabric, EMR stakeholders can be brought into the channel to facilitate data sharing. Attribute-based access control (ABAC) allows users to design the data access control policy, and the data access control may improve security. Any record stored in the blockchain can be viewed using the Hyperledger Fabric feature and it cannot be altered or destroyed, ensuring data traceability. Through proxy re-encryption, which makes sure that the data is not leaked during data exchange, data secrecy can be ensured. A module for medical tokens has now been added. Many foreign medical institutions currently use the medical token system, and the system described in this paper can use the tokens to pay for some medical expenses. The tokens are obtained by the patient’s initiative to share their EMR with the medical institution for research, which is how many foreign medical institutions currently use the medical token mechanism. This paradigm can encourage the growth of medical data by enabling stakeholders to collaborate and share EMR trust.

A Blockchain-Based Self-Tallying Voting Protocol With Maximum Voter Privacy

The development of secure and reliable voting mechanism has attracted more and more attention from academia and industry. Many researchers are trying to design a secure and reliable voting system. However, many existing blockchain-based proposals have more or less problems, such as limited number of participants, weak fault-tolerant mechanisms and inadequate privacy protection, which makes it difficult to apply them to the real world to solve the above problems. Therefore, in this paper, we proposed a blockchain-based self-tallying voting protocol to achieve high available, secure and anonymous voting. More specifically, we adopt threshold secret sharing to deal with abstention problem (this is a difficult problem to solve in self-tallying voting systems). We adopt homomorphic encryption and zero-knowledge proof to achieve anonymity and verifiability of encrypted data. Through the analysis and performance testing, and comparison with existing similar proposals, the results show that our scheme has advantages in security and robustness, and the performance test shows that our scheme has good practicability and scalability.

Patient dignity and dignified care: A qualitative description of hospitalised older adults perspectives.

The aim of this study was to explore older adults' perspectives about dignity and dignified nursing care during acute hospitalisation in Ghana. Maintaining hospitalised older adults' dignity is an essential component of nursing care and one of the most important determinants of wellbeing. To date, no study has been published on older adults' perspectives of dignified nursing care in the African context. A qualitative descriptive research design. Twenty hospitalised older adults were purposively selected from the medical and surgical wards of a teaching hospital in Ghana. Data were gathered through semi-structured interviews between April and August, 2021, and analysed using reflexive thematic analysis techniques. The SRQR checklist was used to document reporting of the study. The following four themes were identified: Effective nurse-patient communication, Maintaining patients' privacy, Respectful and compassionate care provision and Providing quality and safe care. Dignity was preserved when patients were treated with respect and compassion, provided privacy, and had close family members involved in physical care. Identified barriers to dignity included inadequate information about their health condition, poor communication by the nurses, lack of autonomy, poorly designed healthcare infrastructure and inadequate privacy. Several enablers and barriers to dignified nursing care have been identified that have been discussed in previous studies. The unique factors identified in the Ghanaian context were family members' involvement in physical care influenced by cultural and religious beliefs, environmental barriers to privacy and dignity and inadequate involvement in decision making. Nurses must treat older patients with respect, educate them about the health condition, involve them in care decisions, and identify their preferences regarding provision of hygiene needs, particularly in consideration of religious and cultural beliefs, including involvement of family members. Future planning of healthcare infrastructure needs to consider the importance of private cubicles with disability-accessible ensuite bathrooms for patients' comfort and privacy.

A Blockchain-Based Framework for Secure Storage and Sharing of Resumes

In response to problems in the centralized storage of personal resumes on third-party recruitment platforms, such as inadequate privacy protection, inability of individuals to accurately authorize downloads, and inability to determine who downloaded the resume and when, this study proposes a blockchain-based framework for secure storage and sharing of resumes. Users can employ an authorized access mechanism to protect their privacy rights. The proposed framework uses smart contracts, interplanetary file system, symmetric encryption, and digital signatures to protect, verify, and share resumes. Encryption keys are split and stored in multiple depositories through secret-sharing technology to improve the security of these keys. Corresponding key escrow incentives are implemented using smart contracts to automatically verify the correctness of keys and encourage the active participation of honest key escrow parties. This framework combines blockchain and searchable symmetric encryption technology to realize multi-keyword search using inverted indexing and Bloom filters and verify search results on the chain. Escrow search service fees are charged through contracts. Only after the search results are verified can the search service provider obtain the search fee, thus ensuring fair and efficient search for encrypted resumes. The framework is decentralized, secure, and tamper-evident, and achieves controlled sharing while protecting personal privacy and information security.

Digital sexual and reproductive health resources for women living in a migrant camp in Serbia

Prior to Covid-19 (C19), I delivered sexual and reproductive health (SRH) educational workshops to refugee/migrant women in a migrant camp in Belgrade, Serbia. SRH education and access are key to the public health for all but specifically this vulnerable population. C19 and a national lockdown meant an alternative, none face to face delivery method was required. Migrant camps exist throughout Europe, and restrictions due to C19 continue across the world increasing the applicability of this practice in many settings. My previous experience informed my knowledge for course content, however not suitable delivery methods. Most women had mobile phones, however barriers to accessing online content included intermittent internet access, low computer literacy, inadequate privacy, and need for translation. Following research into alternative formats, over a number of months we piloted; texts +/- attachments, voice messages, video streaming, online videos to download. The questions posed were 1. Which format was the most accessible/acceptable to the women? 2. When the format was decided, how many women would access the content and was this number comparable to the workshops? The feedback showed texts with links to unlisted YouTube videos with burned subtitles were best, enabling download when internet access/privacy allowed and requiring minimal computer skills. We created an SRH programme of 5-minute videos with feedback obtained via text. Each video has 4-21 views (averaging 8 and continuing to increase) at time of submission, comparable or more than the workshops. This innovative practice delivers SRH information to women in this migrant camp. It doesn't replace workshops but when access is restricted it can be used independently, or ordinarily as a supplementary tool to workshops. It is applicable in any setting when access is restricted. Benefits include; choice of when/where/how to access; repeat views; potential for wider reach/scaling to reach larger populations.Key messages These carefully designed digital resources have allowed non-English speaking migrant women in a migrant camp to continue accessing sexual and reproductive health education during Covid-19 lockdowns.This innovative practice of delivering information to vulnerable, hard to reach groups is applicable in many settings when face to face access is restricted.

Ethical, Legal, and Social Issues (ELSI) of Responsible Data Sharing Involving Children in Genomics: A Systematic Literature Review of Reasons

Background Progress in precision medicine relies on the access to, use of, and exchange of genomic and associated clinical data, including from children. The ethical, legal, and social issues (ELSI) of such data access, use, and exchange may be accentuated in the pediatric context due in part to the highly sensitive nature of genomic data, children’s consent-related vulnerabilities, and uncertain risks of reidentification. Systematic analyses of the ELSI and scientific reasons for why and how genomic data may be shared responsibly are, however, limited. Methods: We conducted a modified systematic review of reasons according to Sofaer and Strech to examine the ELSI and scientific reasons for “responsible” sharing of children’s genomic and associated clinical data. Empirical articles, commentaries, and data-sharing policies indexed in Medline, Scopus, Web of Science, and BIOSIS were included in the analysis if they discussed ELSI and were published between 2003 and 2017 in English. Results: One hundred and fifty-one records met our inclusion criteria. We identified 11 unique reasons and 8 subreasons for why children’s genomic data should or should not be shared. Enhancing the prospect of direct and indirect benefits and maximizing the utility of children’s data were top reasons why data should be shared. Inadequate data privacy protection was the leading reason why it should not. We furthermore identified 8 reasons and 30 subreasons that support conditional data sharing, in which recontact for the continued use of children’s data once they reach the age of majority was the most frequently endorsed condition. Conclusions: The complete list of ELSI reasons and responsible conditions provides an evidentiary basis upon which institutions can develop data-sharing policies. Institutions should encourage the sharing of children’s data to advance genomic research, while heeding special reconsent and data protection mechanisms that may help mitigate uncertain longitudinal risks for children and families.

Bridging the Gap: Supporting the Inclusion of More Fathers in Maternity Centers in Jamaica

The 1994 International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD) plan of action called for the equal participation of women and men in all areas of family and household responsibility, including family planning, child-rearing, and household chores. This plan of action admonished government to promote and facilitate such participation. The emerging trend to include fathers in maternal and child health services motivated low- to middle-income countries including Jamaica to sign on to global initiatives such as the ICPD and the Sustainability Development Goals for maternal and paternal involvement in the reduction of maternal mortality rates. However, lack of proper infrastructure in the public health system in countries like Jamaica does not sufficiently accommodate fathers during antenatal, childbirth, and postnatal services, neither does it has far reaching programs targeting fathers. This oversight in maternity care is partially due to the lack of guidelines to lead the process, limited space at clinics, and inadequate privacy on some delivery suites.Addressing the gaps to involve more fathers in pregnancy and child-rearing is an unexplored opportunity or innovative strategy that could assist Jamaica in meeting its international obligations to reduce infant and maternal mortality rates. This could also lessen the burden of childbearing and child-rearing on women, while changing the narrative of the negative stereotypes of fatherhood to a positive one in Jamaica. Research has also shown that several undesirable situations are preventable if the pregnant woman gets social and psychological backing, not only from excellent maternal and child health care but also by a social system, particularly from the spouse of the pregnant woman (World Health Organization, 2007).

Health Policy and Privacy Challenges Associated With Digital Technology

Digital technology is part of everyday life. Digital interactions generate large amounts of data that can reveal information about the health of individual consumers (the digital health footprint). Τo describe health privacy challenges associated with digital technology. For this qualitative study, In-depth, semistructured, qualitative interviews were conducted with 26 key experts from diverse fields in the US between January 1 and July 31, 2018. Open-ended questions and hypothetical scenarios were used to identify sources of digital information that contribute to consumers' health-relevant digital footprints and challenges for health privacy. Participants also completed a survey instrument on which they rated the health relatedness of digital data sources. Health policy challenges associated with digital technology based on qualitative responses to expert interviews. Although experts' ratings of digital data sources suggested a possible distinction between health and nonhealth data, qualitative interviews uniformly indicated that all data can be health data, particularly when aggregated across sources and time. Five key characteristics of the digital health footprint were associated with health privacy policy challenges: invisibility (people are unaware of how their data are tracked), inaccuracy (data in the digital health footprint can be inaccurate), immortality (data have no expiration date and are aggregated over time), marketability (data have immense commercial value and are frequently bought and sold), and identifiability (individuals can be readily reidentified and anonymity is nearly impossible to achieve). There are virtually no regulatory structures in the US to protect health privacy in the context of the digital health footprint. The findings suggest that a sector-specific approach to digital technology privacy in the US may be associated with inadequate health privacy protections.