Towards Digital Health Citizenship for Canadian Women Living with MS

This project aims to improve how virtual healthcare technologies serve women in Canada who live with multiple sclerosis (MS). Many women with MS rely on virtual care—such as video visits, phone calls, and secure messaging—to manage their health. However, these tools are not always designed with the needs of disabled women in mind, which can create new barriers instead of removing them.

The research explores what helps or hinders women with MS and chronic pain when they try to access and use virtual care. A Canada-wide survey, developed in partnership with disability organizations (DAWN Canada and MS Canada) and women with lived experience, will gather information about their backgrounds, experiences, and challenges. These findings will then be used to co-create practical recommendations for making virtual care more accessible, equitable, and responsive to the needs of disabled women.

The project is designed for community organizations, virtual care providers, and women living with MS. By centering the voices of disabled women, this work will help shape virtual care technologies that better support their health and well-being. It will also strengthen partnerships and build capacity for future research focused on disability-inclusive digital health.

This project was created in response to long-standing concerns raised by disability communities and women living with multiple sclerosis (MS): virtual care is expanding rapidly in Canada, yet many digital health tools still overlook the everyday realities of disabled women. MS is a condition that affects the nervous system and often brings unpredictable symptoms, including chronic pain. For many women, these symptoms make traditional in-person healthcare difficult to access. Virtual care could ease these challenges, but only if the technology is designed with accessibility and disability in mind.

Across Canada, disability organizations and digital health experts have emphasized that current virtual care systems often fail to account for differences in income, geography, digital literacy, and disability-related needs. These gaps reflect broader policy issues—Canada has national commitments to digital health equity, but implementation remains uneven. This project responds directly to those community-identified gaps by ensuring that disabled women are not only consulted but meaningfully involved in shaping solutions.

The project uses a collaborative, multi-step approach. It begins with a national survey to understand how different social and economic factors influence women’s experiences with virtual care. The survey is co-developed with women who have lived experience, ensuring the questions reflect real-world challenges. The next phase brings community partners together for co-production workshops, where participants collectively interpret the findings and develop practical recommendations. A final series of co-design sessions focuses on turning these recommendations into accessible resources that can be used by community organizations and virtual care providers.

Throughout the project, two key frameworks guide the work: disability-centred design, which prioritizes accessibility from the outset, and intersectionality, which recognizes that gender, disability, income, and geography shape people’s experiences in interconnected ways. By grounding the project in these approaches, the work aims to support long-term change in how virtual care is developed and delivered in Canada.