Challenging health citizenship: digital health engagement among the oldest age groups

This article investigates how older citizens perceive and utilise digital health technologies as part of their everyday health management, health-related risk monitoring and illness prevention. This study draws on empirical data collected as part of the HAIDI research project and include interviews and media go-alongs with 71 individuals aged 75-100 years living in Sweden, Finland and Denmark. Interviews were conducted in 2023, and the transcribed data were analysed using a mix of inductive and deductive approaches. Four overarching themes emerging from the data are explored in the context of late life, reflecting the complexities and nuances of health maintenance and practices in a landscape increasingly shaped by digital health: aiming for self-responsibilisation, utilising digital health technologies for health/risk management, challenging promises of digital health and negotiating health expertise. In this study, the accomplishment of digital health citizenship in late life appeared selective and fluctuating but often also relational, which challenges the existing individualist theorisations of digital health citizenship. This study produces new knowledge on how the oldest citizens navigate the digital health landscape and critically examines the evolving concept of digital health citizenship in the context of ageing, late life and healthcare.