Ethical and embodied perspective on the digital health related baby-tracking and monitoring technologies

We live in an age of intense measurement where metrics, data and quantification have become routine aspects of everyday life. A significant impact of this trend is observed in an ongoing technological evolution in health management, which among other things include at home monitoring of babies – an activity in which parents (and other caregivers) use various technologies to monitor, track and record aspects of a baby's life for the main purpose of promoting her health. While many existing studies focus on the technical and design aspects of these tools, this project offers a novel, experience-based, and ethically grounded perspective on their at-home use by parents.

The project combines survey research on the current use of baby-monitoring technologies in Latvia with phenomenologically grounded qualitative studies involving in-depth interviews with both parents and healthcare providers. The research findings will be analyzed in dialogue with existing literature in bioethics, phenomenology, and public health, and will inform the development of experience-based and ethically sound guidelines for digital health policy makers.

The project consists of three work packages: WP1 Data collection, WP2 Data analysis, and WP3 Theorizing, contextualizing and exploiting research findings.

Results

• 2 scientific publications
• Participation in 7 international conferences
• 2 articles in popular magazines
• Video material
• Digital health technology assessment tool
• Recommendations for digital health policy developers