Young English speakers are most comfortable with digital health

Digital health tools such as patient portals, treatment apps, and online appointment schedulers are increasingly common. But not everyone has access to them at home.

To understand how language, education and age affect a person’s comfort with using digital tools, UCSF researchers surveyed caregivers of children hospitalized at UCSF Benioff Children’s Hospital.

Researchers found that speaking Spanish, having less education, and being older made people less comfortable with digital health tools.

Naomi Bardach, MD, professor of pediatrics at UCSF Benioff Children’s Hospital, said: “Digital health tools are designed to improve access to care and outcomes, but they must be useful to people of all backgrounds to avoid exacerbating the current epidemic. There are health inequalities.

“We don’t want to leave people behind, whether they are older people, people with less education, or people from a certain racial, ethnic or linguistic background.”

The study was published on December 17 in Journal of the American Society for Medical Informatics.

Comfort may affect treatment

Researchers asked people how they felt about using digital tools, what their motivations were for using them, and how safe and in control they felt when using them. The move is aimed at gauging concerns about the privacy of digital health tools.

Education is the most important factor after language. A high school degree or less was strongly associated with lower scores in all three areas of measurement.

Latino and black caregivers scored significantly lower on “a sense of safety and control” when using digital tools. However, rural caregivers scored higher on privacy measures and were more motivated to use digital tools.

People over 45 are less motivated to use digital tools, and they also feel less safe and in control when using them. But they feel they can interact with them if they want to.

“Using these tools can impact all kinds of things, such as requesting medication refills online, tracking daily steps, or helping a child play a game for ADHD,” Bardak said.

“We all need to think about how to ensure people are comfortable using them and, if not, how to provide alternatives.”