Abstract
The advent of technology has brought about new opportunities and interfaces to generate insights into individuals’ and societies’ social worlds and lived experiences. This chapter highlights broad trends in technological innovations and the concomitant rise of digital research methods. First, it explores the mediating role of technology in both accessing the social lives of individuals and understanding realities where novel interactions are easily generated. Second, it highlights how the advent of different technologies, including the internet and social media, personal handheld devices and wearables, as well as big data sources have led to a broadening and deepening of digital research methods. Third, it discusses the benefits of these approaches in the context of global public health. Finally, the chapter discusses several issues relating to the digital divide that must be addressed to realize the potential of digital research methods in furthering efforts to improve global public health.
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Tan, R.K.J., Neo, P.H.M., Lim, J.M., Ong, S.E. (2023). Digital Health Research Methods and Global Public Health. In: Liamputtong, P. (eds) Handbook of Social Sciences and Global Public Health. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-25110-8_54
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