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AI and Health

AI holds huge promise for the health and care of individuals and populations globally. AI technologies are increasingly deployed in health research, healthcare and public health with the aim of promoting innovation and improving health outcomes for all. Identifying and analysing the ethical implications of the research, development and deployment of AI technologies is a key requirement for ensuring trustworthy, ethically robust, sustainable and effective uses of AI in health practice, research and policy.

Paying careful attention to trust, equity and sustainability, researchers at Ethox examine the ethical implications of AI in health research, health care, and policy across all major thematic areas of the Ethox Centre.

Health and AI photo

Research ethics

Our research explores the ethical challenges arising from the use of AI in health research, including biomedical, clinical and population-level studies. AI increasingly shapes how health data are collected, analysed and translated into knowledge. We examine how key ethical principles such as respect for persons and justice, as well as epistemic trustworthiness, reliability, scientific integrity and sustainability are being upheld in an AI-enabled research practice. Particular attention is given to the use of large-scale health data, including electronic health records, biobanks, genomics and epidemiological data. A key cross-cutting theme focuses on the ethics of the ‘AI Scientist’.

Clinical Ethics

Clinical Ethics and AI investigates the ethical implications of AI in clinical practice, with a focus on how AI technologies impact on clinical decision-making, professional responsibility, trust and empathy in the doctor-patient relationship. This research combines normative ethical analysis with empirical research with key stakeholders including clinicians, patients, AI researchers, developers and regulators with the aim of developing practical guidance that supports ethical, trustworthy and sustainable engagement with AI in clinical care. A key part of this programme will be to investigate the ethical implications of the uses of AI in health systems.

Global Health Ethics

This research thread examines the ethical implications of artificial intelligence in global health contexts, with particular attention to equity, justice, and power asymmetries between and within countries. As AI technologies are increasingly applied to global health research, infectious disease surveillance, service delivery, and health system strengthening, the programme investigates how their design, deployment, and governance affect populations and low- and middle-income settings, and the ethics of international collaboration. Much of Ethox’s work on the implication of AI for global health will be undertaken with our partners internationally.