The social lives of point-of-care tests in low- and middle-income countries: a meta-ethnography.

ABSTRACT: Point-of-care tests (POCTs) have become technological solutions for many global health challenges. This meta-ethnography examines what has been learned about the 'social lives' of POCTs from in-depth qualitative research, highlighting key social considerations for policymakers, funders, developers and users in the design, development and deployment of POCTs. We screened qualitative research examining POCTs in low- and middle-income countries and selected 13 papers for synthesis. The findings illuminate five value-based logics-technological autonomy, care, scalability, rapidity and certainty-shaping global health innovation ecosystems and their entanglement with health systems. Our meta-ethnography suggests that POCTs never achieve the technological autonomy often anticipated during design

SUBMITTER: Perkins J 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC11308614 | biostudies-literature | 2024 Aug

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature