From Everyday to Existential -- The ethics of shifting the boundaries of health and data with multimodal digital biomarkers

TL;DR

This paper discusses how multimodal digital biomarkers transform health data into complex, abstract representations, raising ethical issues related to knowledge, responsibility, and governance in preventive medicine.

Contribution

It introduces the concept of ontological and epistemic shifts caused by MDBs and explores their ethical implications in health data practices.

Findings

MDBs expand the scope and complexity of health data

Transformations lead to new ethical considerations in data governance

The paper highlights the need for ethical frameworks in digital health

Abstract

Multimodal digital biomarkers (MDBs) integrate diverse physiological, behavioral, and contextual data to provide continuous representations of health. This paper argues that MDBs expand the concept of digital biomarkers along the dimensions of variability, complexity and abstraction, producing an ontological shift that datafies health and an epistemic shift that redefines health relevance. These transformations entail ethical implications for knowledge, responsibility, and governance in data-driven, preventive medicine.