AUTHOR=Couture Vincent , Roy Marie-Christine , Dez Emma , Tremblay Fannie , Bélisle-Pipon Jean-Christophe 

TITLE=Ethical issues raised by artificial intelligence and big data in population health: a scoping review

JOURNAL=Frontiers in Sociology

VOLUME=Volume 10 - 2025

YEAR=2025

URL=https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/sociology/articles/10.3389/fsoc.2025.1536389

DOI=10.3389/fsoc.2025.1536389

ISSN=2297-7775

ABSTRACT=IntroductionArtificial intelligence systems (AIS) powered by big data (BD) are more and more common in the healthcare sector and many anticipate that they will have a substantial effect on population health. Facing the disruptive potential of these transformations, there is a need to keep the pace with the ethical reflection accompanying the uses of AIS and the BD systems enabling such innovations.MethodsTo carry out this task, we conducted a scoping review of the ethical issues of AIS and BD, in population health, based on 243 scholarly articles.ResultsOur results show the explosion of publications on the subject in recent years. Our qualitative analysis of this literature highlights the potential issues of AIS and BD on the three components of population health: (1) the health outcomes and their distribution in the population and between populations; (2) the patterns of health determinants; (3) the policies and interventions developed to connect the previous components.DiscussionOur conclusions show the uncertainty of the positive outcomes of these technologies and their potential for unequal distribution. Authors consider that AIS and BD will affect determinants of health either in their understanding and by transforming the structure of these determinants. At last, this review points that the policies and interventions developed to attain population health goals will have to answer to numerous ethical expectations. This review offers a comprehensive mapping of ethical issues raised by the uses of AIS in the global field of population health.