Access to Digital Health: Equity by the numbers
![](https://digitalhealthcanada.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/EDI-webinars-4.png)
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