Access to Digital Health: Equity by the numbers
Digital health was primarily created to address health care access barriers. However, it can potentially magnify existing access inequalities wrought by the social determinants of health. With the COVID-19 pandemic, access to and utilization of digital health services have skyrocketed in Canada, going from 10-15% in 2019 to more than 60% in April 2022 to finally plateaued around 30%. Who are benefiting from this consumer adoption gain brought about by the pandemic? How are access to and use of digital health services distributed across different population sub-groups in Canada? Did the increase in virtual care services help to mitigate the access disparities during the pandemic?
In this session, I will address these questions by exploring the inequalities in the access to digitally enabled health services across several socio-demographic, socio-economic and health-related factors. These factors include gender, age, race and ethnicity, household income, access to a family doctor, health status, etc. I will rely on equity indicators collected and generated from Canada Health Infoway’s annual survey on citizens, the Canadian Digital Health Survey.
2024 Acting for Equity Webinar Series:
- January 10: Strategic EDI Blueprint: Maximizing Impact in the Digital Health Sector
- January 17: Impact of digital health on health inequities for racialized communities in Ontario
- January 24: Establishing pan-Canadian Gender, Sex and Sexual Orientation Standards
- January 31: Access to Digital Health: Equity by the numbers
