Contextualizing key principles to promote a justice-oriented informatics research agenda: proceedings and reflections from an American Medical Informatics Association workshop.

Abstract

Advancing health through informatics requires attending to justice. Recent policy changes in the United States have introduced significant barriers to promoting justice within informatics due to targeted funding cuts and hostility to science, especially science that prioritizes justice. We present five key principles for advancing a justice-oriented informatics agenda, synthesized from our workshop held at the American Medical Informatics Association 2022 Annual Symposium. These principles are: (1) Recognize knowledge and methodologies across communities; (2) Acknowledge historical and cultural contexts of interactions; (3) Facilitate transparency and accountability through clear measures and metrics; (4) Foster trust and sustainability; and (5) Equitably allocate compensation and resources. We discuss barriers to implementing these principles that have arisen since the 2022 workshop and provide recommendations for moving towards justice-oriented informatics. We offer examples of how these principles may be used to frame challenges and adapt to new barriers within BMI.