Developing an Original Framework for Ethical Communication in the Nigerian Digital Health Information Environment

Digital health information environments in Nigeria exhibit a complex ecology of professional health organisations, social media influencers, traditional healers, and algorithmic content curation that produces significant ethical communication challenges without a guiding theoretical framework adequate to the Nigerian context. This study developed an original ethical framework for digital health communication in the Nigerian information environment. A philosophical-empirical framework construction methodology was employed. The philosophical analysis engaged the principlism framework (beneficence, non-maleficence, autonomy, justice), Habermasian discourse ethics, Ubuntu communal ethics, and Islamic health communication ethics, identifying their complementary contributions to a Nigerian digital health communication ethics. Empirical grounding was provided through three studies: a systematic content analysis of ethical violations in 1,200 digital health communication posts from Nigerian health accounts on social media, structured interviews with 35 healthcare communication professionals and health journalists, and focus group discussions with 60 health information consumers across urban and rural sites in four geopolitical zones. Empirical analysis identified the most frequent ethical failures as unfounded health claims (37.4 percent of analysed posts), privacy violations in patient-case content (22.1 percent), commercial interest nondisclosure (18.7 percent), and health stigma perpetuation (14.6 percent). The original Nigerian Digital Health Communication Ethics Framework integrates communal beneficence, cultural epistemic respect, structural equity, accountability, and transparency as five core ethical principles, with specific operational standards for each. The framework was reviewed and validated by 20 health communication ethics and bioethics scholars.

Keywords: health communication ethics, digital health, Nigerian health information, ethical framework, original contribution