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Peer-reviewedCC BY 4.0Frontiers in Public Health

Youth engagement in digital public health: from visibility to influence, accountability, and reach

  • Alessandro Pascon Filho1,2,3
  • Stella Goeschl1,4
  • Paul Dietram1,5
  • Melanie Maria Kuhrn1
  • Swostika Thapaliya1,6
  • Aferdita Bytyqi1
6 affiliations
  1. 1Digital Transformations for Health Laboratory, University of Geneva
  2. 2Barretos School of Health Sciences (FACISB)
  3. 3Molecular Oncology Research Center, Barretos Cancer Hospital
  4. 4Imperial College London
  5. 5School of Nursing, KCMC University
  6. 6Central Department of Public Health, Tribhuvan University
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Abstract

Digital tools increasingly shape the health of adolescents and young adults, yet these young people with the highest stakes often hold the least power over how these tools are designed, governed, and evaluated. Calls for meaningful youth engagement have become widespread, and a visible infrastructure of advisory boards, forums, and delegations has grown around it. However, participation has expanded faster than the influence it implies. In this perspective, we argue that the gap between participatory rhetoric and governance reality is largely structural: the mechanisms now in place tend to make youth engagement visible without converting it into influence over what is decided. We trace this through three tensions—visibility without influence, consultation without accountability, and global rhetoric with local exclusion—each showing how the vocabulary of participation can describe arrangements that carry little real power. Moving from consultation to leadership, we argue, calls for attention to three considerations: formal, age-appropriate decision rights for young people; a duty on institutions to document and answer youth input; and governance capacity in the settings where digital tools are actually used. We set out illustrative mechanisms and safeguards for each, to inform the digital health strategies now being drafted.

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Cite

BibTeXRIS
BibTeX
@article{filho2026youth,
  title = {{Youth engagement in digital public health: from visibility to influence, accountability, and reach}},
  author = {Alessandro Pascon Filho and Stella Goeschl and Paul Dietram and Melanie Maria Kuhrn and Swostika Thapaliya and Aferdita Bytyqi},
  journal = {Frontiers in Public Health},
  year = {2026},
  month = oct,
  doi = {10.3389/fpubh.2026.1993809},
  url = {https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpubh.2026.1993809/full},
  note = {CC BY 4.0},
}
RIS
TY  - JOUR
TI  - Youth engagement in digital public health: from visibility to influence, accountability, and reach
AU  - Alessandro Pascon Filho
AU  - Stella Goeschl
AU  - Paul Dietram
AU  - Melanie Maria Kuhrn
AU  - Swostika Thapaliya
AU  - Aferdita Bytyqi
PY  - 2026
DA  - 2026/10/23
JO  - Frontiers in Public Health
DO  - 10.3389/fpubh.2026.1993809
UR  - https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpubh.2026.1993809/full
AB  - Digital tools increasingly shape the health of adolescents and young adults, yet these young people with the highest stakes often hold the least power over how these tools are designed, governed, and evaluated. Calls for meaningful youth engagement have become widespread, and a visible infrastructure of advisory boards, forums, and delegations has grown around it. However, participation has expanded faster than the influence it implies. In this perspective, we argue that the gap between participatory rhetoric and governance reality is largely structural: the mechanisms now in place tend to make youth engagement visible without converting it into influence over what is decided. We trace this through three tensions—visibility without influence, consultation without accountability, and global rhetoric with local exclusion—each showing how the vocabulary of participation can describe arrangements that carry little real power. Moving from consultation to leadership, we argue, calls for attention to three considerations: formal, age-appropriate decision rights for young people; a duty on institutions to document and answer youth input; and governance capacity in the settings where digital tools are actually used. We set out illustrative mechanisms and safeguards for each, to inform the digital health strategies now being drafted.
SN  - 2296-2565
ER  -