National Library of Medicine History Talk – Dr. Kim Gallon, “Shutting the Digital Back Door: Creating Tech Justice with Health Data Liquidity and the Digital Humanities”

Kenneth Koyle Announcement
Location
United States
Subject Fields
African American History / Studies, Digital Humanities, Health and Health Care, History of Science, Medicine, and Technology, Race / Ethnic Studies

Please join us for the next National Library of Medicine History Talk on Tuesday, October 4, 2022, at 1:00pm ET via NIH Videocasting, featuring Kim Gallon, PhD, MS, MLIS, Associate Professor of Africana Studies, Brown University, and Just Tech Fellow, Just Tech Program, Social Sciences Research Council. Dr. Gallon explores the concept of the digital back door in health care, “technological processes and tools used in health care, such as racially biased algorithms, infrastructural limitations, and dirty data” and its historical roots in structural and systemic racism. The methodological use of the digital humanities offers an opportunity to eliminate digital back doors by creating more humanistic and equitable health information technology (health IT) that addresses health disparities and inequities. Data liquidity, health information and data that is more computationally agile, usable, and interoperable between patients and clinicians, fosters a reinterpretation of health data into voice, image and text that is both conducted and conveyed through the digital humanities. The talk concludes with the challenges of dismantling health IT praxis and infrastructure that are antithetical to the digital humanities and data liquidity.

Dr. Gallon’s talk—the first of two virtual lectures that are part of the Data, Health, and the Digital Humanities: Shared Horizons II virtual workshop—is co-sponsored by the National Endowment for the Humanities as part of the NLM/NEH partnership to collaborate on research, education, and career initiatives.

Contact Information

Kenneth M. Koyle

Deputy Chief, History of Medicine Division

U.S. National Library of Medicine

Contact Email
ken.koyle@nih.gov