Health-AI—the Daily Practice of Human-AI Collaborations in Healthcare

Dear Colleagues,

We invite you to contribute to a Special Issue on AI in healthcare, with a focus on the daily practice of human and non-human (AI) collaboration, and its practical and ethical implications for healthcare.

The emergence of health technologies—from wearable sensors and clinical decision-support algorithms to predictive AI—is transforming contemporary medicine. In this context, it is crucial to critically examine the epistemologies, promises, and consequences of these innovations. We welcome contributions from all social sciences, provided they are ethnographically or empirically grounded, as we aim to investigate how these developments shape notions of knowledge and expertise and how bodies and health are defined, managed, and understood.

This Special Issue is open to contributions that explore how AI systems are designed and used in various (healthcare) organizations, and we seek to understand when healthcare professionals intervene or resist AI, when AI is useful, and when it is not. We welcome submissions that shed light on the daily practice of collaboration between healthcare professionals and AI, and the implications of this collaboration for healthcare and their daily work.

In line with our theme, "Health-AI—the Daily Practice of Human-AI Collaborations in Healthcare" we are inspired by research that provides insight into how algorithms become cultural artefacts shaping medical work, how professionals deal with the opacity of AI in critical diagnostic judgments, how AI influences clinical decision making, and how human and AI collaboration in clinical documentation or decision making reveals new styles of valuation. We also aim to explore how healthcare organizations negotiate the legitimacy of algorithmic interventions amidst imaginaries of disruptive innovation and the need for continuity, repair, and care.

We encourage ethnographically grounded contributions that illuminate how cultural, political, and economic contexts shape the development, deployment, and interpretation of algorithmic systems. We are also interested in collaborative pieces between professional caretakers and social scientists, who together reflect on particular AI systems and usage. By bringing together diverse voices from and beyond the social sciences around this topic, we aim to foster a critical and constructive dialogue about how humans and technologies co-constitute the future of healthcare.

We welcome submissions on topics including but not limited to the following:

• Ethnographic studies of AI-driven diagnostic or therapeutic technologies;
• Unexpected outcomes of AI usage on the ground, observed in clinics;
• Empirical evidence of how healthcare professionals collaborate with AI, and/or how AI impacts their decision making;
• Valuation practises and ethics of data-driven health interventions;
• Reconfigurations of expertise and organizational negotiations;
• Algorithmic concepts of normality and abnormality.

For consideration, please submit your abstract (min 150 words–max 500 words) to the Special Issue editors, Dr. Roanne van Voorst (r.s.vanvoorst@uva.nl) and Dr. Guo Zongtian (z.guo3@uva.nl), by 10 September 2025. Notification of acceptance will be provided by 10 October 2025. Final papers are due on 28 February 2026 for peer review.

Dr. Roanne van Voorst
Dr. Zongtian Guo
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a double-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Social Sciences is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 1800 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

• AI
• healthcare
• human–nonhuman decision making
• medical knowledge production
• ethical AI
• algorithms