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From Innovation to Inclusion: Navigating Equity Challenges in Digital Health
Speaker (s):
Edmund Lee
Associate Professor
Department of Media
and Communication
City University of Hong Kong
| Date: Time: Venue: | | 22 December 2025, Monday 10:00am – 11:00am School of Computing &
Information Systems 2 (SCIS 2)
Level 4, Seminar Room 4-2
Singapore Management University
90 Stamford Road
Singapore 178903 Please register by 21 December 2025 We look forward to seeing you at this research seminar. 
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About the Talk Since the rapid rise of large language models, artificial intelligence (AI) has moved to the forefront of global attention, especially in the realm of healthcare. Around the world, governments are accelerating their push toward smart-health systems, while companies and start-ups are racing to design the next generation of digital health products; from app-based health trackers and wearable biosensors to AI-supported diagnostics, virtual consultations, and personalised treatment pathways. These innovations are often celebrated for their potential to reshape healthcare by improving reach, efficiency, and diagnostics.
Yet this progress raises an essential question: Who truly benefits? Uneven access to digital health devices means that the most vulnerable populations may not experience these benefits equally. In some communities, AI-driven health tools can unlock new opportunities for prevention, monitoring, and empowerment. In others, they risk reinforcing the very inequities we hope technology will solve.
This talk explores the dual nature of digital health and AI, focusing on their capacity to open doors as well as create new barriers. It will also address what is required to ensure that technological innovation leads to more equitable health futures.
About the Speaker Dr. Edmund W. J. Lee is an Associate Professor (tenured) at the Department of Media and Communication at City University of Hong Kong, where he currently serves as the Program Leader for the Master of Arts in Communication and New Media (MACNM). He previously was an Assistant Professor at the Wee Kim Wee School of Communication and Information at Nanyang Technological University, Singapore, where he served as Assistant Director at the Centre for Information Integrity and the Internet (IN-cube). He was a recipient of the College of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences (HASS) International Postdoctoral Fellowship (HIPF) administered by NTU and the Ministry of Education. Under this fellowship, Dr. Lee held a joint postdoctoral research fellow appointment at the Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health and Dana Farber Cancer Institute.
As a public health communication scientist, Dr Lee’s research focuses on developing health technologies to tackle health inequalities, and how to take advantage of digital traces—data from social media, smartphones, wearables, and electronic health records—intelligently and ethically to understand and improve public health outcomes. Dr. Lee also teaches and conducts training on health communication at the Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), and Tan Tock Seng Hospital in Singapore. |
