Data-driven digital technologies are increasingly ordinary parts of our everyday lives.  

We define ‘everyday’ data cultures in three main ways:  

1. Everyday data intimacies: about the ways we come to understand ourselves through data. For example, how we present ourselves on a dating app via the drop-down menus that offer us certain identity choices.  
2. Everyday data literacies: about the ways we come to understand our data practices and how we use or manipulate them in certain ways. For example, when filling out a sexual history form we might keep certain elements of our identity or behaviours private, but still provide the answers that will provide us access to care.  
3. Everyday data publics: the ways we organise ourselves into different groups through our uses of digital technologies. For example as activists, or artists, or those seeking out gender affirming care.   

🎥  Watch an explainer video on our YouTube page.  

Digital literacy can mean a lot of things. It can mean the ability to effectively use platforms on your computer – like Word, or Excel. It can mean possessing the skills to interpret digital content. Like being able to check the sources of internet information and to identify misinformation.  

In sexual health literature and health research, it is often talked about in relation to health consumers, rather than health workforces.   

Digital literacy is an important element of being able to engage with digital and data technologies and platforms for sexual and reproductive health. However, it doesn’t capture all of the elements necessary for sexual and reproductive health organisations and individuals to participate in and benefit from digital transformation.  

For example, an individual staff member might be very digitally literate. They are able to effectively use digital technologies, but they work in an office with obsolete digital technologies. Or they might be great at creating digital health promotion content, but discover there’s a firewall blocking their access to the social media platforms used by target populations.   

For this reason, we talk about digital and data capabilities – rather than literacies.   

We have written more about this here.

🎥  Watch a video explainer on our YouTube page. 

The tech skills you need will depend upon the type of technologies your organisation (and role) use. It might mean being able to use different platforms, like teams, to communicate with others in your organisation. It might be the ability to use digital forms for patient information and data. It can also be the very specific skills it takes to create and disseminate social media content.  

We recommend you use our Checklist to help identify the skills and knowledge most relevant to your role/organisation.   

When it comes to different social media platforms, the young adults we spoke to in our research did not necessarily require health care providers to know every detail about how every platform works, or to stay on top of all the latest social media trends. 

But they did want an understanding from their health care providers of digital media as a valid site of lived expertise. This meant recognising and validating their social media practices as a way to support and affirm care.    

“I use TikTok quite often [for sexual health] especially when it’s something super specific, a lot of people are relating to it or a lot of people have the same experience, so it’s cool seeing that there’s either quite a few videos or quite a few comments on a video and being able to think like, oh my gosh I experience the same thing. Especially when mainstream healthcare doesn’t really cover all aspects of sexual health” (Young adult 18-29 workshop participant, DDCSRH).  

In our workshops and interviews, young adults shared the different ways they used social platforms to support their sexual and reproductive health. We present these findings in the diagram below.  

🔥 Why are young adults are seeking health information online, and what would they like to see from health practitioners in digital spaces?  

In our workshops and interviews, health care providers shared the different ways they used social platforms to support their sexual and reproductive health. We present these findings in the diagram below. 

Data expertise includes possessing the specialised skills and approaches needed to collect and use data. The kinds of data expertise you might need will depend upon the context of your work and the kind of data that you and your organisation have access to.  

For example, you might be using epidemiological data to inform your health promotion messaging. Here, the expertise lies in data analysis (or making sense of the data) and thinking about how to translate this into meaningful communications for your target population.  

 Use the Data Capabilities Model to help you think about the kinds of data expertise you or your organisation needs.

You will find more information about interoperability via the Australian Digital Health Agency:   

• Interoperability: what is it and why do we need it? (Info page) 

https://www.digitalhealth.gov.au/healthcare-providers/initiatives-and-programs/interoperability 

• Connecting Australian Healthcare – National Healthcare Interoperability Plan 2023-2028 

 https://www.digitalhealth.gov.au/about-us/strategies-and-plans/national-healthcare-interoperability-plan 

• Interoperability and digital health standards  

https://developer.digitalhealth.gov.au/initiatives/interoperability-and-digital-health-standards 

The International Indigenous Data Sovereignty Interest Group published the ‘CARE Principles for Indigenous Data Governance’ (Collective Benefit, Authority to Control, Responsibility, and Ethics): https://www.gida-global.org/care 

• Open access journal article: https://static1.squarespace.com/static/5d3799de845604000199cd24/t/6397b1aff7a6fb54defdf687/1670885815820/dsj-1158_carroll.pdf 

 
To learn about the Maiam nayri Wingara Indigenous Data Sovereignty Principles click here: https://www.maiamnayriwingara.org/mnw-principles 

The Australian Digital Inclusion Index tracks and reports on digital inclusion. The website uses survey data to measure digital inclusion across three dimensions of Access, Affordability and Digital Ability, exploring how these vary across the country and across different social groups.     

Mapping the Digital Gap: Using qualitative and quantitative research methods, this project website presents data to help measure progress on Closing the Gap Target 17, which aims for equivalent levels of digital inclusion for First Nations people by 2026.