Public Engagement Strategies in Digital Health Ethics: Protocol for a Scoping Review

The ethical, legal, and social issues accompanying the latest advancements in digital health technologies highlight the need to involve the public in their design, development, and deployment to align with societal values and needs. For public engagement to be meaningful, it should be participatory, inclusive, and scalable. However, studies in participatory digital health do not characterize public engagement strategies in terms of scalability, representativeness, and the extent of participation. Moreover, no reviews have examined how ethical debates shape the design and implementation of public engagement strategies in digital health ethics.

The objectives of the planned study based on this protocol are to (1) identify approaches used to engage the public in digital health ethics; (2) characterize approaches used in digital health ethics in terms of scalability, representativeness, and extent of participation; and (3) explore the role of ethics in the design and implementation of participatory methods.

The research will be undertaken using the Joanna Briggs Institute scoping review method. To identify relevant literature, the academic databases PubMed, ScienceDirect, IEEE Xplore, and Web of Science will be searched for articles published from January 1, 2015, to November 30, 2025. All retrieved papers will be uploaded to the Rayyan software. Duplicates will be removed, and subsequently, 2 reviewers will independently screen titles and abstracts, followed by full-text screening using a hybrid verification model. Data will be extracted on a spreadsheet, with rows representing individual studies and columns capturing categories of extracted information.

Currently, the search has yielded 1352 articles; at the title and abstract screening phase, 1291 (95.5%) articles have been excluded and 61 (4.5%) have been included. Anticipated results are the number of studies, bibliographic details of the studies (ie, author, publication year, journal, and country), participant characteristics, digital health technology type, participatory methods, and media, as well as the embodiment of participatory, representative, and scalable characteristics in engagement methods and how ethical debates influence the design of public engagement strategies.

This protocol outlines methodology for a scoping review mapping the characteristics and ethics of public engagement methods to improve participatory and ethically responsible innovation in digital health.