Key areas to cover based on the article include:
- Introduction and Purpose:
- The article’s motivation stems from increasing public health campaigns promoting digital and health literacy, and the growing requirement for sexual health workforces to adopt digital technologies for various activities like clinical service provision and health promotion.
- It addresses the sensitivities and stigma associated with sexual health and the push to support consumer needs through digital provision of content and services.
- A central aim is to propose alternative and less “morally loaded” frameworks of digital and data capability for sexual health, challenging the tendency in existing literature to frame literacy as an individual deficit.
- Methodology:
- The authors conducted a narrative review of research on digital literacy within sexual health literature in 2022, adopting a sociotechnical approach.
- The search involved 7 databases (Web of Science, Medline, PubMed, Cinahl, Embase, PsychInfo, and Communications and Mass Media) and Google Scholar to include social science and humanities research.
- The review included 30 full-text articles, primarily excluding those older than 2010 unless they provided foundational frameworks.
- The review specifically sought to answer how digital literacy and data literacy are defined and assessed in sexual health, the populations considered, the purpose and value of digital technologies, and the connection between digital literacy and sexual health outcomes.
- Key Findings (Results):
- Current definitions of digital literacy are contradictory and unclear, and a consideration of data literacy for sexual health is largely absent in the literature.
- Much of the literature defines digital literacy (eHealth literacy) primarily as the individual’s ability to seek, find, understand, and appraise health information from electronic sources.
- The prevailing framing sees digital literacy as a need or deficit for individual sexual health consumers, often overlooking the digital literacy of health workforces.
- Digital technologies are predominantly represented as sites for one-directional information, with digital literacy primarily concerning technological skills for clinical services (e.g., using telemedicine).
- The potential for social support or sexual pleasure/connection through digital platforms is often framed alongside notions of risk.
- Connections between digital literacy and sexual health outcomes are explored, including access to services, adherence to care, and behavioral changes, but it is also recognized as an amplifier of existing health inequalities.
- Conclusions and Policy Implications:
- The authors argue that “literacy” is a “loaded concept” historically linked to measuring and remediating individual deficits, which can perpetuate stigma. They highlight that “workplace literacy moves on without” highly experienced staff who may be deemed “digitally illiterate” in relation to new technologies.
- They endorse a holistic “capabilities approach” to digital transformation policy and infrastructure as a positive move, aligning with existing Australian and international policy shifts (e.g., Australian Digital Health Capability Framework, WHO’s digital strategy).
- A capabilities approach reframes the discussion from individual deficits to a collective and systemic perspective, encompassing infrastructures, practices, competencies, and organizational goals.
- This approach, drawing on the work of Sen and Nussbaum, acknowledges that an individual’s wellbeing and efficacy are contingent on broader social and political circumstances, not solely individual ability.
- It is crucial for policymakers and funders to adopt an enabling, rights-based approach that supports collective understandings and access to digital technologies for both sexual health workforces and consumers, rather than simply measuring individual strengths and deficits.
- The article questions how data-driven digital technologies can promote social justice and equity, especially given platform governance policies that restrict sexual and reproductive health content.
APA Reference:
Albury, K., & Mannix, S. (2025). From Digital Health Literacy to a Digital and Data Capabilities Approach to Sexual Health. Sexuality Research and Social Policy. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1007/s13178-025-01110-x
