Surveillance Medicine: exploring the social and ethical implications of digital mental health tools for diverse communities

This thesis explores the social and ethical implications of digital mental health (DMH) tools for diverse young people and illustrates how these tools can be more inclusively designed. Through participatory and speculative anticipatory design workshops with culturally diverse, LGBTQ+, and regionally located young people and parents, the study highlights how intersecting identities shape mental health experiences and help seeking behaviours. Findings reveal that DMH tools tend to ignore social contexts and user agency, and more is needed to improve data governance and literacy. Using a design justice framework and capabilities approach, the research calls for inclusive, culturally safe, and privacy respecting tools that support user control over data. The thesis proposes actionable design pathways including the development of a Design Checklist for Inclusive DMH for more equitable and responsible DMH tool design.