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DIFFERENCES AND INEQUALITIES IN HEALTH

The potential for information technologies (ITs) to contribute to a struggle against social inequalities in health is discussed in contemporary policy and research. Expectations are on IT to facilitate access to health expertise and knowledge, and hence result in improved health practices and outcomes for individuals. In this article, the authors argue that this currently dominant understanding of the relation between IT and social inequalities in health is constraining as well as insufficient to explain the persistence of health inequalities in digitalized western societies. Human action is reduced to be about rational choice, and technology is expected to be a passive tool to be employed by implementers and policy-makers. Drawing on case studies from two telemedicine projects in Norway, this analysis combines perspectives from sociology concerned with structural inequalities on the one hand, with science technology studies on the other. It reveals how the practice and performance of IT is tied to the practice and performance of local differences, and this might be important to a discussion of the social distribution of health. Combining these two perspectives allows for an alternative understanding of how IT and social inequalities in health interact.