By Orna Herr, Communications Officer (Education) at the British Science Association

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After discussing his education and career in public health so far (which you can read about in parts one and two of this blog series), the conversation between Professor Kevin Fenton and journalist Kirsty Lang at the British Science Festival 2024 turned to the increasing encroachment of AI and other technologies on our lives.

Kevin and Kirsty were sitting down for a fireside chat at the Festival, held this year in East London, for Kevin’s Presidential Address as he becomes the next President of the British Science Association (BSA). He shared his views on the pros and cons of public health intertwining with advanced technology, and why he feels it’s important to remain a positive presence on social media.

“There are some fantastic opportunities”

Kirsty began the discussion about asking Kevin the potential he, as a self-declared technophile, sees in AI improving health outcomes. He explains that using AI tools can assist doctors in providing people with diagnoses, and therefore treatment, quicker.

AI allows you to get better diagnostics because you’re looking at and using data from a larger number of inputs and you’re able to synthesise it more quickly…so instead of taking weeks and months to do analytic runs, you can identify patterns earlier.

He continued:

AI helping you to do your diagnostics better, to think about how about you route patients’ treatment – there are some fantastic opportunities and personalised public health, personalised medicine, is going to rely on AI increasingly.

"Can technology help us do better? Absolutely"

Health technology could be beneficial in the hands of patients as well as practitioners, Kevin said. One possible benefit  could be in screenings and vaccinations, especially for parents/carers who need to keep up-to-date with their children’s records.

“We’re having real challenges even with our childhood vaccination programmes. We have some of the most powerful tools in childhood vaccinations but we’re not getting them into the arms of the kids that need them most.

“Can technology help us do better? Absolutely. I’d love for every parent in East London to have an app they can look at that can say, what is my immunisation record, get automated reminders to help fast track the process of getting your child their vaccinations a lot easier.

“Technologies are necessary but they’re not sufficient”

With this mention of public use of technology for healthcare purposes, the conversation turned to the problems this can bring in terms of equal and equitable access. Kevin highlighted that while the technology itself can be extremely efficient, to ignore the realities of how people use technology in different ways would be foolhardy.

I’m not sure about the promise of the democratisation of technology. We all have cell phones, so therefore automatically we all should be using AI and mobile health to engage everyone. But we don’t use our phones in the same way, nor do we have the same capacities to do that. We have to be really careful that AI is not another shiny object that we try and say all the problems that we have we’re going to solve with AI.

He emphasised, as he did when discussing his work in the U.S. on the HIV/AIDS crisis, that building trust with the communities you’re working with is vital when you’re introducing new technologies.

What we’re really learning now is that technologies are necessary but they’re not sufficient. When you have great technology but you’re not able to deliver those technologies or you don’t have the capacity in terms of the healthcare system, and you don’t have the trust of the communities that you’re serving to engage with the technologies, then you have a problem with delivery.

“We’re talking about inherent bias”

Another issue with advancing technologies – that must be faced head-on in order for them to benefit everyone – is the lack of diversity among the creators and developers, which leads to biases within the technology.

“Whose in the room when these technologies are being made?” Kevin asked.

We’re talking about the inherent bias. Who are the people developing these tools and what questions are asked when data are being used to inform the models which then give you the answers?

A data brief by the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Diversity and Inclusion in STEM*, for which the BSA is the secretariat, found that the technology industry is currently dominated by White, middle-aged men. Although there is slightly more diversity of ethnicity and race than in other STEM sectors, women make up just 21% of the technology workforce and disabled people are also underrepresented.

There are already reports of facial recognition technology not recognising Black faces, and a study by MIT found that AI analysis of X-rays was more likely to produce inaccurate results for women and people of colour than for White men.

This is an issue Kevin recognises.

Part of the problem is that there is a lack of diversity, both in terms of many characteristics, gender, racial ethnicity, sexual orientation, your life chances, among the people who are developing these tools and how they are being interrogated.

“We cannot leave social media to those who shout the loudest”

While AI has become a societal talking point more recently, another issue Kevin and Kirsty discussed, which has been part of the zeitgeist of the 21^st century, is social media.

Kirsty pointed out that Kevin is very vocal on social media, despite it being a playground for those who seek to spread disinformation. Studies have shown, for example, that misinformation about the COVID-19 vaccine spread on social media impacted vaccine hesitancy.

He explained that he wants to provide a beacon of truth amongst the noise.

We have to recognise that [social media] is the way people are communicating and are connected now. And we cannot leave the space of social media to those who shout the loudest and those who are wanting to use it negatively.

He continued, sharing how he is able to connect and share with like-minded folk on an international scale.

The power of social media means I can post something and have conversations with people in South Africa, Atlanta, in Buenos Aires, who are committed to a topic that I’ve posted on, and they’re sharing their experiences…and asking questions about their own practice. I’m…using the space to have the conversations that are really helping people to reflect on their practice. And that for me is a joy.

Kevin will be bringing his wealth of knowledge and experience of public health and how we can make the best and most use of AI and other technologies to make healthcare equitable to his role of President of the BSA for 2024-2025.

Read parts one and two on this blog series here:

BSA Presidential Address: Professor Kevin Fenton CBE (part one)

BSA Presidential Address: Professor Kevin Fenton CBE (part two)