Health Data as a Global Public Good?

The international provision of health data was long considered the responsibility of the World Health Organization (WHO). Recently, there has been a proliferation of actors who produce heath data. The increasingly articulated idea that this data could serve as a global public good (GPG) is intriguing and inspiring. It highlights common interests and the great potential that data has for global health. However, the paper will argue that there are multiple ways in which the idea could be understood and that it runs the risk of portraying GPGs as static end points at which positive results have been achieved.

Embracing a broader understanding, the paper will propose that the idea is at its best if it is interpreted as an analytic approach and if (digital) health data is analysed through the lens of the contemporary scholarly literature on GPGs. Such an analysis must also take into consideration in what broader societal context (digital) health data will be embedded. In the present case, this includes discussions regarding the contemporary digital or data economy since any data that is made public will presumably be available in a digital format and become part of this (political) economy. This alerts us to issues such as the big data divide and contemporary business models with their inherent drive towards monopolization, which is often based on network effects and made possible because goods are provided as GPGs, which makes it difficult for competitors to emerge while consumers pay by means other than money.