Harnessing Digital Technologies for Improved Healthcare Delivery and Infectious Disease Management in Sub-Saharan Africa
A special issue of Tropical Medicine and Infectious Disease (ISSN 2414-6366).
Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (30 September 2024)
Special Issue Editor
Interests: machine learning; health informatics; artificial intelligence; mobile computing
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Special Issue Information
Harnessing digital technologies can make a significant impact on sub-Saharan Africa’s healthcare delivery and subsequently improve health outcomes. Several health systems in sub-Saharan Africa face many challenges, including limited access to quality healthcare services, the burden of infectious diseases, limited access to healthcare facilities, healthcare workforce shortages, inadequate infrastructure and poor network coverage to connect the unconnected and less-privileged communities, and lack of active policy and frameworks for integrating digital technologies. However, digital technologies offer tremendous opportunities to revolutionize healthcare delivery and tackle these pressing issues. This call for papers aims to bring together researchers, practitioners, and innovators to explore diverse ways in which digital technologies can be harnessed for improving healthcare delivery and infectious disease management in Sub-Saharan Africa.
This Special Issue invites original research papers, case studies, and reviews on various topics, including telemedicine; mHealth; health information systems; digital health technologies; disease surveillance, prediction, detection, and reporting; health data privacy and security considerations; deep learning; machine learning; and framework and policy considerations.
We invite original research papers, case studies, and reviews that address various aspects of harnessing digital technologies in the context of sub-Saharan Africa's healthcare. Topics of interest include, but are not limited to:
- Telemedicine and Telehealth solutions for remote consultations, virtual healthcare services, and improving access to specialized care.
- Mobile Health (mHealth) innovations for health education, behavior change interventions, remote monitoring, and improving patient adherence to treatment.
- Health Information Systems, including electronic health records (EHRs), health data interoperability, and data analytics for informed decision
- Disease Surveillance and early warning systems leveraging digital tools, real-time data collection, analysis, and reporting for effective disease control and prevention.
- Digital solutions and innovative applications of artificial intelligence (AI), deep learning (DL), machine learning (ML), and data science in healthcare delivery and disease management.
- Human-centered design approaches and usability studies of digital health solutions tailored to the Sub-Saharan African context.
- Policy and regulatory frameworks for digital health adoption, data privacy, and security considerations.
- Capacity building and training initiatives utilizing digital technologies for healthcare professionals and community health workers.
- Socio-economic impact assessments of digital health interventions in Sub-Saharan Africa.
Submission Guidelines:
- Manuscripts should be original and unpublished, written in English, and formatted according to the specified guidelines.
- Submissions can be in the form of full research papers, short communications, or case studies.
- All submissions will undergo a rigorous peer-review process to ensure high-quality contributions.
Dr. Elliot Mbunge
Guest Editor
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 250 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for assessment.
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 single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Tropical Medicine and Infectious Disease 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 2700 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.
Keywords
- • digital technologies • public health • infectious disease management • Sub-Saharan Africa • machine learning • deep learning
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