Ethical issues of personal health monitoring: a literature review

Conference item

Personal Health Monitoring (PHM) technologies are currently in development to supplement medical care environments with health monitoring outside “brick and mortar” settings to better meet the needs of people with long-term illnesses. This review identifies common themes in the current literature discussing ethics of PHM and gaps in need of further research. Identified themes include privacy, autonomy, medicalization, social isolation, visibility and impact on healthcare providers. An in-depth discussion of the ethical issues of PHM was rarely found in the searched literature. Areas in need of further research include inadvertent monitoring and the impact of PHM on families and patient relationships.

Authors: Mittelstadt, B; Fairweather, B; Shaw, M; McBride, N

• Publication status: Published
• Peer review status: Peer reviewed
• Publisher: Centre for Computing and Social Responsibility
• Host title: ETHICOMP 2011 Conference Proceedings
• Journal: ETHICOMP 2011 Conference Proceedings
• Publication date: 2011-06-20
• Acceptance date: 2010-12-21