Published in:
01-04-2021 | COVID-19
The Expanding Digital Divide: Digital Health Access Inequities during the COVID-19 Pandemic in New York City
Authors:
Chukwuma N. Eruchalu, Margaret S. Pichardo, Maheetha Bharadwaj, Carmen B. Rodriguez, Jorge A. Rodriguez, Regan W. Bergmark, David W. Bates, Gezzer Ortega
Published in:
Journal of Urban Health
|
Issue 2/2021
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Excerpt
As telemedicine use for healthcare delivery during the COVID-19 pandemic has grown, access to technology has emerged as a fundamental determinant of access to care. Accordingly, digital access is now being recognized as a social determinant of health [
1]. Over 21 million individuals in the USA lack broadband internet access, limiting access to telemedicine [
2,
3]. New York State (NYS) has been one of the early epicenters of the pandemic in the USA. While NYS has a 99.9% broadband internet infrastructure, nearly one-third of New York City (NYC) households, or approximately 2.2 million residents, lack a home broadband internet subscription [
4‐
6]. Furthermore, significant disparities in broadband internet access exist for NYC residents who are low income, racial/ethnic minority, over the age of 65, or have a non-English primary language. Digital literacy is also lower among these populations [
5‐
7]. …