Peer-Reviewed Publication
Lancet Digit Health2025;7(1):e64-e88.January 1, 2025Journal Article
Tackling algorithmic bias and promoting transparency in health datasets: the STANDING Together consensus recommendations.
Joseph E Alderman1, Joanne Palmer1, Elinor Laws1, Melissa D McCradden2, Johan Ordish3, Marzyeh Ghassemi4, Stephen R Pfohl5, Negar Rostamzadeh6, Heather Cole-Lewis7, Ben Glocker8, Melanie Calvert9, Tom J Pollard10, Jaspret Gill11, Jacqui Gath12, Adewale Adebajo13, Jude Beng14, Cassandra H Leung15, Stephanie Kuku16, Lesley-Anne Farmer17, Rubeta N Matin18, Bilal A Mateen19, Francis McKay20, Katherine Heller5, Alan Karthikesalingam21, Darren Treanor22, Maxine Mackintosh23, Lauren Oakden-Rayner24, Russell Pearson25, Arjun K Manrai26, Puja Myles25, Judit Kumuthini27, Zoher Kapacee28, Neil J Sebire29, Lama H Nazer30, Jarrel Seah31, Ashley Akbari32, Lew Berman33, Judy W Gichoya34, Lorenzo Righetto35, Diana Samuel36, William Wasswa37, Maria Charalambides38, Anmol Arora39, Sameer Pujari40, Charlotte Summers41, Elizabeth Sapey42, Sharon Wilkinson43, Vishal Thakker44, Alastair Denniston45, Xiaoxuan Liu46
1University Hospitals Birmingham NHS Foundation Trust, Birmingham, UK; National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR) Birmingham Biomedical Research Centre, Birmingham, UK; University of Birmingham, Birmingham, UK.
2Department of Bioethics, The Hospital for Sick Children, Toronto, ON, Canada; Genetics and Genome Biology, SickKids Research Institute, Toronto, ON, Canada.
3University of Birmingham, Birmingham, UK; Roche Diagnostics, Rotkreuz, Switzerland; Hughes Hall, Cambridge, UK.
4Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA, USA; Institute for Medical Engineering and Science, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA, USA.
5Google Research, Mountain View, CA, USA.
6Google Research, Montreal, Quebec, USA.
7Google, Mountain View, CA, USA.
8Department of Computing, Imperial College London, London, UK.
9University Hospitals Birmingham NHS Foundation Trust, Birmingham, UK; National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR) Birmingham Biomedical Research Centre, Birmingham, UK; Birmingham Health Partners Centre for Regulatory Science and Innovation, Birmingham, UK; NIHR Applied Research Collaboration West Midlands, Birmingham, UK; NIHR Blood and Transplant Research Unit in Precision Transplant and Cellular Therapeutics, Birmingham, UK.
10Institute for Medical Engineering and Science, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA, USA.
11University Hospitals Birmingham NHS Foundation Trust, Birmingham, UK.
12Independent Cancer Patients' Voice, London, UK; Patient and Public Contributor, Sheffield, UK.
13NIHR Sheffield Biomedical Research Centre, Sheffield, UK.
14School of Medicine and Population Health, University of Sheffield, Sheffield, UK.
15patient and public contributor, Munich, Germany.
16Institute of Women's Health, University College London, London, UK.
17Tethyan Consulting, Canberra, Australia.
18Oxford University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, Oxford, UK; University of Oxford, Oxford, UK.
19Institute of Health Informatics, University College London, London, UK; PATH, Seattle, WA, USA; Wellcome Trust, London, UK.
20Population Health Sciences Institute, Newcastle University, Newcastle, UK; Health Determinants Research Collaboration, Gateshead Council, Gateshead, UK.
21Google, London, UK.
22Leeds Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust, Leeds, UK; University of Leeds, Leeds, UK; Department of Clinical Pathology and Department of Clinical and Experimental Medicine, Linköping University, Linköping, Sweden.
23Genomics England, London, UK; The Alan Turing Institute, London, UK.
24Australian Institute for Machine Learning, University of Adelaide, Adelaide, SA, Australia.
25Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency, London, UK.
26Department of Biomedical Informatics, Harvard Medical School, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, USA.
27African Biobanks and Longitudinal Epidemiologic Ecosystem, Ibadan, Nigeria.
28Health Research Authority, London, UK.
29NIHR Great Ormond Street Hospital Biomedical Research Centre at UCL, University College London, London, UK.
30King Hussein Cancer Centre, Amman, Jordan.
31Harrison.ai, Sydney, NSW, Australia; Alfred Health, Melbourne, VIC, Australia; Monash University, Melbourne, VIC, Australia.
32Population Data Science, Swansea University Medical School, Faculty of Medicine, Health and Life Science, Swansea University, Wales, UK.
33All of Us Research Program, National Institutes of Health, Office of the Director, Bethesda, MD, USA.
34Department of Radiology, Emory University School of Medicine, Atlanta, GA, USA.
35Nature Research, London, UK.
36The Lancet Digital Health, The Lancet, London, UK.
37Department of Biomedical Sciences and Engineering, Mbarara University of Science and Technology, Mbarara, Uganda.
38Dermatopharmacology, Faculty of Medicine, Southampton, UK; Department of Dermatology, University Hospitals Southampton NHS Foundation Trust, Southampton, UK.
39School of Clinical Medicine, Cambridge, UK; University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK.
40WHO, Geneva, Switzerland.
41Victor Phillip Dahdaleh Heart and Lung Research Institute, Cambridge, UK.
42University Hospitals Birmingham NHS Foundation Trust, Birmingham, UK; National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR) Birmingham Biomedical Research Centre, Birmingham, UK; Centre for Patient Reported Outcomes Research, School of Health Sciences, College of Medical and Dental Sciences, Birmingham, UK; University of Birmingham, Birmingham, UK; PIONEER, HDR UK Health Data Hub in Acute Care, Birmingham, UK; NIHR Midlands Applied Research Collaboration, Acute Care Theme, West Midlands, UK; NIHR Midlands Patient Safety Collaboration, Birmingham, UK.
43University of Southampton, Southampton, UK; National Institute for Health and Care Research, Southampton, UK.
44British Standards Institute, London, UK.
45University Hospitals Birmingham NHS Foundation Trust, Birmingham, UK; National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR) Birmingham Biomedical Research Centre, Birmingham, UK; Birmingham Health Partners Centre for Regulatory Science and Innovation, Birmingham, UK; Centre for Patient Reported Outcomes Research, School of Health Sciences, College of Medical and Dental Sciences, Birmingham, UK; University of Birmingham, Birmingham, UK; NIHR Biomedical Research Centre, Moorfields Eye Hospital and University College London, London, UK.
46University Hospitals Birmingham NHS Foundation Trust, Birmingham, UK; National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR) Birmingham Biomedical Research Centre, Birmingham, UK; Centre for Patient Reported Outcomes Research, School of Health Sciences, College of Medical and Dental Sciences, Birmingham, UK; University of Birmingham, Birmingham, UK. Electronic address: x.liu.8@bham.ac.uk.
Abstract
Without careful dissection of the ways in which biases can be encoded into artificial intelligence (AI) health technologies, there is a risk of perpetuating existing health inequalities at scale. One major source of bias is the data that underpins such technologies. The STANDING Together recommendations aim to encourage transparency regarding limitations of health datasets and proactive evaluation…
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