Event

Ethical issues in the integration of AI-based technology in global healthcare

Organised by NatCen International and the Nuffield Department of Primary Care Health Sciences.

Event time:

15th May 2025 13:00 – 14:30
Format:

online

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is increasingly recognised as a transformative force in healthcare, promising breakthroughs in early disease detection, personalised medicine, and operational efficiency. Yet the terrain remains largely uncharted: many of these technologies are still in their infancy, lacking established regulatory guardrails or universal ethical standards. This uncertainty creates both urgency and opportunity—particularly for ensuring that AI is developed and deployed through localisation and two-way knowledge sharing in global health.

From diagnostic imaging tools and predictive analytics to robotic surgery systems, virtual health assistants, and AI “copilots,” the spectrum of healthcare AI is extensive. While these innovations can improve diagnostic speed and accuracy, guide personalised treatments, and ease clinician workloads, they also raise critical concerns about data bias, privacy vulnerabilities, and over-reliance on automated decisions. Addressing these challenges—by embedding fairness, transparency, and context-specific safeguards—will be essential in shaping ethical and inclusive AI adoption worldwide.

In many respects, healthcare AI has emerged unevenly. High-income countries drive research and funding, while low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) may find themselves adapting or importing technologies that lack contextual fit. If these power imbalances go unaddressed, existing disparities in healthcare could deepen. Moreover, persistent knowledge gaps about healthcare systems in LMICs—such as limited data infrastructure, under-researched disease burdens, and the complexity of local healthcare delivery—can further exacerbate this uneven development.

These gaps not only affect the immediate applicability of AI solutions but also shape the broader trajectory of AI innovation, potentially entrenching inequalities. Additionally, while healthcare professionals are generally trained to diagnose and treat diverse patient populations, evidence shows that such training often falls short in practice. Research on racial and ethnic minorities and populations in LMICs remains limited, leading to overlooked conditions or misdiagnoses in these groups. For example, diseases may present differently across populations or have unique risk factors that are under-researched, creating blind spots even among well-trained practitioners. If healthcare AI systems are built on these same biased or incomplete data sets, they risk perpetuating and amplifying these inequities on a global scale.

The concept of capacity sharing—where knowledge, resources, and technologies flow bidirectionally—becomes vital in supporting truly inclusive and sustainable AI adoption. Likewise, timely integration of ethical principles is key: delaying robust governance until AI systems are deeply entrenched can be costly, further entrench unequal power dynamics.

Speakers

Esmita Charani

Associate Professor University of Cape Town

Esmita is an Associate Professor at the University of Cape Town where she is undertaking a Wellcome Trust Career Development Fellowship on intersectional research in antimicrobial resistance (AMR), the PROTEA study, across South Africa and India. She is the Co-Principal Investigator of CAMO-Net South Africa Hub. In the UK, she is an Honorary Reader in Infectious Diseases, AMR and Global Health at the University of Liverpool. Her work in AMR has been recognised through the Academy of Medical Sciences UK-India AMR Visiting Professor Award. She is involved in mentoring and supporting clinical pharmacists and researchers across different healthcare settings and economies in implementing antimicrobial stewardship interventions.
Vanya Valindria

Assistant Professor of Data Science Monash University

Dr Vanya Valindria is an Assistant Professor of Data Science, specialising in AI with a focus on medical AI, digital health, and generative AI media. She earned her PhD in Computing Research from Imperial College London, where she worked on machine learning models for medical image analysis. She also holds a Master’s degree in Computer Vision and Robotics from the European Erasmus Mundus program, and a Bachelor’s degree in Electrical (Biomedical) Engineering from the Bandung Institute of Technology. Before transitioning into academia, Dr Vanya gained valuable industry experience as a Senior AI Researcher in both digital healthcare and e-commerce, working on large-scale AI implementations and research projects. This industrial experience allowed her to bridge practical applications of AI with academic research, offering a unique perspective on innovation and problem-solving. Prior to joining Monash University, Dr Vanya served as a Postdoctoral Research Fellow in the Center of Medical Image Computing, University College London and Medical AI Researcher & Consultant in IMERI Faculty of Medicine, University of Indonesia. Dr Vanya's research interests focus on the intersection of AI and digital healthcare. She works on multi-modal disease diagnosis and prognosis, utilising diverse medical data, such as images, clinical records, and laboratory results. She is also exploring the potential of generative AI in multimedia tailored to the Indonesian context. Her passion for advancing AI in healthcare drives her current research efforts, aiming to revolutionise disease screening, diagnosis and treatment, particularly in underserved regions.
Nyawira Gitahi

Director and DataDelta lead for Africa region IDinsight

As the DataDelta Lead for the African region, Nyawira will conceptualize, secure, fundraise, and execute strategic efforts and projects to increase DataDelta’s social impact, influence, profile, and engagement in the African region and beyond. She brings extensive experience in research implementation of large multi-country studies and program implementation in the health sector. She has led various studies on HIV and pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) efficacy. She worked previously for GlaxoSmithKline, where she provided leadership for the SOAR EMEA region for a global regional study, and was also a regional director at LVCT Health, a leading not-for-profit where led the implementation large multi-layered project on girl empowerment and its intersection on health outcomes. She has honed her skills in research through mixed-methods study from a competitive Fogarty International Centre fellowship grant from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and several fellowships and honours through the University of Washington, University of San Francisco, California, and as a postdoctoral research fellow at the University of Toronto. Most recently, she was the Executive director at Goldstar Kenya, a local NGO with strengths

Chair

Raffaele Ippolito

Research Associate, School of Geography and the Environment, University of Oxford

Raffaele is a multi-disciplinary researcher with a background in anthropology, geography, and global health. His current research focuses on the impact of emerging technologies on global health, climate change, and migration. Raffaele worked in international development with the United Nations University, the World Health Organization (WHO), and the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP). His postdoctoral research at the University of Oxford focused on community participation in the context of environmental injustice and digital health interventions. His doctoral research combined photography and participatory methods to examine illness and aspirations to justice in marginalised communities affected by chronic industrial pollution in Italy and Taiwan. His work has been published in edited volumes and academic journals including Environment and Planning C: Politics and Space, Social Science & Medicine, and Global Public Health. Raffaele holds a DPhil from the University of Oxford, an MSc from Taipei Medical University, and a BA from SOAS University of London.

Moderators

Diane Abdallah

Research Director National Centre for Social Research

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Diane joined NatCen International in July 2023 as a Research Director. Her research will centre on Global Health with a focus on Equity and Inequality. Before joining NatCen, Diane was a Lecturer in Psychology at the University of Kent with an interest in Social and Political Psychology. During that time, she worked on developing a module on race and racism that spans across multiple humanities and social sciences subjects including: Psychology, Sociology, Economics, Politics, Anthropology and Conservation. She also assisted in devising and implementing a creative mentoring programme for Graduate Teaching Assistants using methods to enhance their wellbeing and role in the School of Psychology.
She is a mixed-methods researcher with experience in carrying out both quantitative and qualitative research in Social, Political and Organisational Psychology. She was also the Methods and Statistics module convenor for the MSc program in Organisational Psychology.
She has previously worked with Syrian Refugees in Lebanon and investigated the factors underlying the #MeToo movement in Lebanon.
Davide Bilardi

Teaching Fellow Oxford University

Davide Bilardi is a Teaching Fellow at the Department of Primary Care Health Sciences. He is a member of the senior academic team of the Master’s in Global Healthcare Leadership programme that the Department runs in conjunction with the Saïd Business School. In this role, he contributes to shaping the academic experience of executive professionals from diverse global backgrounds, supporting their learning, research, and leadership development. As part of the senior academic team, he plays a key role in fostering interdisciplinary collaboration between healthcare and business education, strengthening the programme’s influence in international health policy circles. He also co-leads and teaches in two of the MSc's modules. His work has deepened his engagement in multi-stakeholder research initiatives and reinforced his commitment to promoting inclusivity and equity in global health. He completed his DPhil in Clinical Medicine at the University of Oxford with a focus on measuring the impact of capacity-strengthening initiatives in global health research. His research, conducted with The Global Health Network evaluated tools for assessing research competencies among healthcare workers in low- and middle-income countries, involving research centres in Brazil, Thailand, and Zambia. As part of the Decolonisation and Global Health Exchange Network, he worked for over a year in Kenya as a senior postdoctoral researcher at the Health Systems and Research Ethics Department of the KEMRI-Wellcome Trust Research Programme. His project examined best practices in research capacity strengthening, aiming to foster a more equitable and inclusive approach to knowledge exchange.