IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/bla/glopol/v12y2021is6p75-79.html

What’s Technology Got to Do With It? Power, Politics, and Health Equity Beyond Technological Triumphalism

Author

Listed:
  • Andrea A. Cortinois
  • Anne‐Emanuelle Birn

Abstract

In this paper, we critically discuss whether digital technology can address health inequities. We reflect on the role technology plays in support of an economic model that produces increasingly significant socio‐economic inequalities, both within and across countries. We focus in particular on the role that technology plays in deepening the historical North/South chasm, briefly analysing economic, political, social, and cultural implications. We conclude by emphasizing how technology can indeed be a useful tool, but only when it is embedded in popular action or policies that redistribute power and resources.

Suggested Citation

  • Andrea A. Cortinois & Anne‐Emanuelle Birn, 2021. "What’s Technology Got to Do With It? Power, Politics, and Health Equity Beyond Technological Triumphalism," Global Policy, London School of Economics and Political Science, vol. 12(S6), pages 75-79, July.
    • Handle: RePEc:bla:glopol:v:12:y:2021:i:s6:p:75-79
    DOI: 10.1111/1758-5899.12982
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1111/1758-5899.12982
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1111/1758-5899.12982?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Nicola Jones, 2018. "How to stop data centres from gobbling up the world’s electricity," Nature, Nature, vol. 561(7722), pages 163-166, September.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Juliet Kelechi Igbo & Lucian Obinna Chukwu & Emmanuel Olusegun Oyewo & Jason L. Blum & Ariana Schanzer & Isaac Wirgin & Gabriella Y. Meltzer & Nirmal K. Roy & Judith T. Zelikoff, 2022. "The Chemistry and Health Outcomes of Electronic Waste (E-Waste) Leachate: Exposure to E-Waste Is Toxic to Atlantic Killifish ( Fundulus heteroclitus ) Embryos," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(18), pages 1-16, September.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Dirk Helbing & Farzam Fanitabasi & Fosca Giannotti & Regula Hänggli & Carina I. Hausladen & Jeroen van den Hoven & Sachit Mahajan & Dino Pedreschi & Evangelos Pournaras, 2021. "Ethics of Smart Cities: Towards Value-Sensitive Design and Co-Evolving City Life," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(20), pages 1-25, October.
    2. Dongqing Han & Dayong Zhang & Peng Yue & Zhengxu Cao, 2024. "Toward Sustainable Development: Can Digital Transformation of Industrial Enterprise Drive Carbon Reduction?," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 16(23), pages 1-18, November.
    3. Chen, Sirui & Li, Peng & Ji, Haoran & Yu, Hao & Yan, Jinyue & Wu, Jianzhong & Wang, Chengshan, 2021. "Operational flexibility of active distribution networks with the potential from data centers," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 293(C).
    4. Evgeny Burnaev & Evgeny Mironov & Aleksei Shpilman & Maxim Mironenko & Dmitry Katalevsky, 2023. "Practical AI Cases for Solving ESG Challenges," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 15(17), pages 1-15, August.
    5. Pier Giacomo Cardinali & Pietro De Giovanni, 2022. "Responsible digitalization through digital technologies and green practices," Corporate Social Responsibility and Environmental Management, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 29(4), pages 984-995, July.
    6. Tongyang Liu & Xiaoyawen Han & Dong Xue & Maishou Li, 2025. "The Impact of the Imbalance in China’s Digital Economy on Carbon Emissions," SAGE Open, , vol. 15(2), pages 21582440251, June.
    7. Mingjing Li & Huihui Zhou & Xiaofeng Xu & Zhiwei Zhong & Puli Quan & Xueke Zhu & Yanyu Lin & Wenjie Lin & Xiaosha Li & Dong Wang & Junchao Zhang & Yunhao Ma & Xiaole Cui & Wei Wang & Qingyan Meng & Zh, 2026. "A highly energy-efficient multi-core neuromorphic architecture for training deep spiking neural networks," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 17(1), pages 1-14, December.
    8. Ran, Jingyu & Zhang, Quan & Zhu, Yiqun & Zhai, John & Li, Junshan & Guo, Zhenjun & Wang, Tengyu, 2026. "Co-optimization of thermal-aware workload scheduling with deep reinforcement learning-based cooling control in data centers," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 344(C).
    9. Ugo Pagallo & Massimo Durante, 2022. "The Good, the Bad, and the Invisible with Its Opportunity Costs: Introduction to the ‘J’ Special Issue on “the Impact of Artificial Intelligence on Law”," J, MDPI, vol. 5(1), pages 1-11, February.
    10. Tian, Tong & Yang, Xuan & Li, Ji, 2025. "To boost waste heat harvesting and power generation through a portable heat pipe battery during high efficient electronics cooling," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 377(PA).
    11. Matteo Manganelli & Alessandro Soldati & Luigi Martirano & Seeram Ramakrishna, 2021. "Strategies for Improving the Sustainability of Data Centers via Energy Mix, Energy Conservation, and Circular Energy," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(11), pages 1-25, May.
    12. World Bank, 2023. "The Leaders of the Twin Transition in Asia," World Bank Publications - Reports 40222, The World Bank Group.
    13. Hyvönen, Johannes & Mori, Taro & Saunavaara, Juha & Hiltunen, Pauli & Pärssinen, Matti & Syri, Sanna, 2024. "Potential of solar photovoltaics and waste heat utilization in cold climate data centers. Case study: Finland and northern Japan," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 201(C).
    14. Ana Salomé García-Muñiz & María Rosalía Vicente, 2021. "The Effects of Informational Feedback on the Energy Consumption of Online Services: Some Evidence for the European Union," Energies, MDPI, vol. 14(10), pages 1-14, May.
    15. Lee, Chien-Chiang & Zou, Jinyang & Chen, Pei-Fen, 2025. "The impact of artificial intelligence on the energy consumption of corporations: The role of human capital," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 143(C).
    16. Gilmore, Nicholas & Koskinen, Ilpo & van Gennip, Domenique & Paget, Greta & Burr, Patrick A. & Obbard, Edward G. & Daiyan, Rahman & Sproul, Alistair & Kay, Merlinde & Lennon, Alison & Konstantinou, Ge, 2022. "Clean energy futures: An Australian based foresight study," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 260(C).
    17. Jiyong Park & Kunsoo Han & Byungtae Lee, 2023. "Green Cloud? An Empirical Analysis of Cloud Computing and Energy Efficiency," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 69(3), pages 1639-1664, March.
    18. Ying-Hui Shao & Yan-Hong Yang & Han-Xian Zhou & Wei-Xing Zhou, 2025. "Dynamic spillovers and investment strategies across artificial intelligence ETFs, artificial intelligence tokens, and green markets," Papers 2503.01148, arXiv.org, revised Jun 2025.
    19. Zhao, Jing & Hou, Jiewen & Yang, Zilan & Liu, Dehan & Xu, Bingtao & Zhang, William & Yao, Meng & Cui, Juanjuan & Liu, Shupei & Qi, Xiaoqiang & Su, Zhaohao & Chen, Bo, 2026. "Collaborative model predictive control for indirect evaporative cooling systems in data centers based on dynamic hot-spot tracking," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 344(C).
    20. Feifei Yu & Jiayi Mao & Qing Jiang, 2025. "Accumulate thickly to grow thinly: the U-shaped relationship between digital transformation and corporate carbon performance," Environment, Development and Sustainability: A Multidisciplinary Approach to the Theory and Practice of Sustainable Development, Springer, vol. 27(1), pages 2135-2160, January.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:bla:glopol:v:12:y:2021:i:s6:p:75-79. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/lsepsuk.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.