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Below is a brief summary of the dissertation:

The future of healthcare is digital. Digital health holds promise for universal health coverage. However, real challenges remain in its development and implementation, particularly in meeting the fundamental healthcare needs of vulnerable groups, including older adults, people living in remote areas and patients with chronic diseases.

Grounded in the right to health under international human rights law and bioethical principles, this thesis integrates empirical findings with theoretical frameworks to examine how mobile health shifts rights, responsibilities and relationships. It adopts a dual-context design, comprising case studies from China and a broader analysis of digital health challenges. Key legal and ethical dimensions examined include the right to health, justice, data privacy, and autonomy.

Findings from case studies in China indicate a need to strengthen regulatory approaches to the commodification of mobile health to ensure equitable access, as well as to enhance health data governance framework that better reconcile individual fundamental rights with private and public interests. Normative analysis of virtual care further reveals increasing healthcare consumerism and heightened individual responsibility, which challenges shared decision-making and reshapes relationships among patients, physicians and technology developers. The thesis contributes normative insights, arguing for a conceptual shift from an individualistic to a more relational understanding of mobile health. By developing a new framework that combines the Capability Approach with the right to health, it also offers practical guidance for policymakers to better integrate mobile health into healthcare systems. The thesis further suggests a collective approach to responsibilities in evolving digital health environments.