The ethical aspects of exposome research: a systematic review

In recent years, exposome research has been put forward as the next frontier for the study of human health and disease. Exposome research entails the analysis of the totality of environmental exposures and their corresponding biological responses within the human body. Increasingly, this is operationalized by big-data approaches to map the effects of internal as well as external exposures using smart sensors and multiomics technologies. However, the ethical implications of exposome research are still only rarely discussed in the literature. Therefore, we conducted a systematic review of the academic literature regarding both the exposome and underlying research fields and approaches, to map the ethical aspects that are relevant to exposome research. We identify five ethical themes that are prominent in ethics discussions: the goals of exposome research, its standards, its tools, how it relates to study participants, and the consequences of its products. Furthermore, we provide a number of general principles for how future ethics research can best make use of our comprehensive overview of the ethical aspects of exposome research. Lastly, we highlight three aspects of exposome research that are most in need of ethical reflection: the actionability of its findings, the epidemiological or clinical norms applicable to exposome research, and the meaning and action–implications of bias

The Ethical Aspects of Exposome Research: A Systematic Review

In recent years, exposome research has been put forward as the next frontier for the study of human health and disease. Exposome research entails the analysis of the totality of environmental exposures and their corresponding biological responses within the human body. Increasingly, this is operationalized by big-data approaches to map the effects of internal as well as external exposures using smart sensors and multi-omics technologies. However, the ethical implications of exposome research are still only rarely discussed in the literature. Therefore, we conducted a systematic review of the academic literature regarding both the exposome and underlying research fields and approaches, to map the ethical aspects that are relevant to exposome research. We identify five ethical themes that are prominent in ethics discussions: the goals of exposome research, its standards, its tools, how it relates to study participants and the consequences of its products. Furthermore, we provide a number of general principles for how future ethics research can best make use of our comprehensive overview of the ethical aspects of exposome research. Lastly, we highlight three aspects of exposome research that are most in need of ethical reflection: the actionability of its findings, the epidemiological or clinical norms applicable to exposome research and the meaning and action-implications of bias

The Ethical Aspects of Exposome Research: A Systematic Review

In recent years, exposome research has been put forward as the next frontier for the study of human health and disease. Exposome research entails the analysis of the totality of environmental exposures and their corresponding biological responses within the human body. Increasingly, this is operationalized by big-data approaches to map the effects of internal as well as external exposures using smart sensors and multiomics technologies. However, the ethical implications of exposome research are still only rarely discussed in the literature. Therefore, we conducted a systematic review of the academic literature regarding both the exposome and underlying research fields and approaches, to map the ethical aspects that are relevant to exposome research. We identify five ethical themes that are prominent in ethics discussions: the goals of exposome research, its standards, its tools, how it relates to study participants, and the consequences of its products. Furthermore, we provide a number of general principles for how future ethics research can best make use of our comprehensive overview of the ethical aspects of exposome research. Lastly, we highlight three aspects of exposome research that are most in need of ethical reflection: the actionability of its findings, the epidemiological or clinical norms applicable to exposome research, and the meaning and action–implications of bias

Commercial mHealth Apps and Exploitative Value Trade-offs

Mobile health (mHealth) apps are becoming progressively important for primary care, disease prevention, and public health interventions. They promise to empower its users by offering them more independence, better access to health services, and more insight into their health status resulting in better informed medical decision-making and lifestyle changes. Disadvantages of mHealth apps often include a lack of privacy protection, a decrease in personal attachment, and the acceptance of a normative conception of health challenging the user’s self-determination. Privacy, attachment, and self-determination are, alongside health, linked to fundamental dimensions of human well-being. Users of mHealth apps can either accept those disadvantages or abstain from using this technology entirely. Users, therefore, have to trade-off fundamental dimensions of well-being to gain a certain health benefit if they want to use commercial mHealth apps. This presentation will clarify the values most relevant in this context, focusing on privacy, self-determination, and attachment. I claim that these values imply fundamental conditions of well-being that should not be undermined, especially in the context of health care. I will argue that the value trade-offs users must engage in are an instance of mutually advantageous agreements by which the provider of the app takes unfair advantage of the user. This renders such agreements exploitative. I will discuss the notion of exploitation that I think applies in this case and explain under what circumstances exploitative agreements that come with the use of commercial mHealth apps oppose the empowerment narrative

Front-Line Physicians' Satisfaction with Information Systems in Hospitals

Day-to-day operations management in hospital units is difficult due to continuously varying situations, several actors involved and a vast number of information systems in use. The aim of this study was to describe front-line physicians' satisfaction with existing information systems needed to support the day-to-day operations management in hospitals. A cross-sectional survey was used and data chosen with stratified random sampling were collected in nine hospitals. Data were analyzed with descriptive and inferential statistical methods. The response rate was 65 % (n = 111). The physicians reported that information systems support their decision making to some extent, but they do not improve access to information nor are they tailored for physicians. The respondents also reported that they need to use several information systems to support decision making and that they would prefer one information system to access important information. Improved information access would better support physicians' decision making and has the potential to improve the quality of decisions and speed up the decision making process.Peer reviewe

“Be a Pattern for the World”: The Development of a Dark Patterns Detection Tool to Prevent Online User Loss

Dark Patterns are designed to trick users into sharing more information or spending more money than they had intended to do, by configuring online interactions to confuse or add pressure to the users. They are highly varied in their form, and are therefore difficult to classify and detect. Therefore, this research is designed to develop a framework for the automated detection of potential instances of web-based dark patterns, and from there to develop a software tool that will provide a highly useful defensive tool that helps detect and highlight these patterns

Minding the Gap: Computing Ethics and the Political Economy of Big Tech

In 1988 Michael Mahoney wrote that “[w]hat is truly revolutionary about the computer will become clear only when computing acquires a proper history, one that ties it to other technologies and thus uncovers the precedents that make its innovations significant” (Mahoney, 1988). Today, over thirty years after this quote was written, we are living right in the middle of the information age and computing technology is constantly transforming modern living in revolutionary ways and in such a high degree that is giving rise to many ethical considerations, dilemmas, and social disruption. To explore the myriad of issues associated with the ethical challenges of computers using the lens of political economy it is important to explore the history and development of computer technology

Technical Debt is an Ethical Issue

We introduce the problem of technical debt, with particular focus on critical infrastructure, and put forward our view that this is a digital ethics issue. We propose that the software engineering process must adapt its current notion of technical debt – focusing on technical costs – to include the potential cost to society if the technical debt is not addressed, and the cost of analysing, modelling and understanding this ethical debt. Finally, we provide an overview of the development of educational material – based on a collection of technical debt case studies - in order to teach about technical debt and its ethical implication

Proceedings of the ETHICOMP 2022: Effectiveness of ICT ethics - How do we help solve ethical problems in the field of ICT?

This Ethicomp is again organized in exceptional times. Two previous ones were forced to turn to online conferences because of Covid-pandemic but it was decided that this one would be the physical one or cancelled as the need for real encounters and discussion between people are essential part of doing philosophy. We need possibility to meet people face to face and even part of the presentation were held distance–because of insurmountable problems of arriving by some authors– we manage to have real, physical conference, even the number of participants was smaller than previous conferences.The need of Ethicomp is underlined by the way world nowadays is portrayed for us. The truthfulness and argumentation seem to be replaced by lies, strategic games, hate and disrespect of humanity in personal, societal and even global communication. EThicomp is many times referred as community and therefore it is important that we as community do protect what Ethicomp stands for. We need to seek for goodness and be able to give argumentation what that goodness is. This lead us towards Habermass communicative action and Discourse ethics which encourages open and respectful discourse between people (see eg.Habermass 1984;1987;1996). However, this does not mean that we need to accept everything and everybody. We need to defend truthfulness, equality and demand those from others too. There are situations when some people should be removed from discussions if they neglect the demand for discourse. Because by giving voice for claims that have no respect for argumentation, lacks the respect of human dignity or are not ready for mutual understanding (or at least aiming to see possibility for it) we cannot have meaningful communication. This is visible in communication of all levels today and it should not be accepted, but resisted. It is duty of us all.</p