Diabetes Care
HOME HELP FEEDBACK SUBSCRIPTIONS ARCHIVE SEARCH TABLE OF CONTENTS
QUICK SEARCH:   [advanced]


     

Published online December 4, 2007
Diabetes Care 31:433-435, 2008
DOI: 10.2337/dc07-1667
© 2008 by the American Diabetes Association
This Article
Right arrow Full Text
Right arrow Full Text (PDF)
Right arrow All Versions of this Article:
dc07-1667v1
31/3/433    most recent
Right arrow Purchase Article
Right arrow View Shopping Cart
Right arrow Alert me when this article is cited
Right arrow Alert me if a correction is posted
Services
Right arrow Email this article to a friend
Right arrow Similar articles in this journal
Right arrow Similar articles in PubMed
Right arrow Alert me to new issues of the journal
Right arrow Download to citation manager
Right arrow Request Permissions
Citing Articles
Right arrow Citing Articles via Google Scholar
Google Scholar
Right arrow Articles by Watson, A. J.
Right arrow Articles by Grant, R. W.
Right arrow Search for Related Content
PubMed
Right arrow PubMed Citation
Right arrow Articles by Watson, A. J.
Right arrow Articles by Grant, R. W.
Social Bookmarking
Add to CiteULike   Add to Del.icio.us   Add to Digg   Add to Reddit   Add to Technorati  
What's this?

Clinical Care/Education/Nutrition/Psychosocial Research
Original Research

Reevaluating the Digital Divide: Current Lack of Internet Use Is Not a Barrier to Adoption of Novel Health Information Technology

Alice J. Watson, MBCHB, MRCP, MPH1,2, Alastair G. Bell, BMBCH, MRCP, MBA1, Joseph C. Kvedar, MD1,2 and Richard W. Grant, MD, MPH2,3

1 Center for Connected Health, Boston, Massachusetts
2 Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts
3 General Medicine Division, Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, Massachusetts

Address correspondence and reprint requests to Alice J. Watson, MBChB, MRCP, MPH, 25 New Chardon St., Suite 400D, Boston, MA 02114. E-mail: ajwatson@partners.org

Abbreviations: HIT, health information technology

The first 20% of the full text of this article appears below.


   INTRODUCTION
 
Improving care for a growing population of complex patients with type 2 diabetes requires developing innovative strategies for clinical management (1,2). Currently, roughly 70% of the U.S. population uses the Internet (3,4). Disparities in Internet use across social and ethnic strata, however, have resulted in the well-publicized "digital divide" (5,6). Population segments less likely to be online, such as the elderly, nonwhite race/ethnic groups, and the poor, are also disproportionately affected by diabetes (7). It is unknown whether barriers to Internet use extend to the use of other health information technology (HIT) tools being developed to support diabetes care. We hypothesized that patients not currently online might nonetheless be receptive to adopting future technologies designed to support their diabetes care.


   RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODS—
 
We conducted a mail survey of 4,024 patients with type 2 diabetes in eastern Massachusetts identified via our primary care network's administrative database. After excluding 102 ineligible subjects, our response rate was 29% (1,146 of 3,922). Excluding subjects who left blank the question about current Internet use, 952 responses remained for analysis (24% of eligible cohort). Compared with nonrespondents, survey respondents were somewhat older (65.8 vs. 64.2 years, P = 0.002), more often male (58 vs. 49%, P < 0.001), more often white (86 vs. 78%, P < 0.001), and lived in neighborhoods with slightly higher median family incomes ($49,746 vs. $44,101 based on annual tax returns by zip code, P . . . [Full Text of this Article]

Statistical methods

   RESULTS—
 

   CONCLUSIONS—
 

Add to CiteULike CiteULike   Add to Del.icio.us Del.icio.us   Add to Digg Digg   Add to Reddit Reddit   Add to Technorati Technorati    What's this?




HOME HELP FEEDBACK SUBSCRIPTIONS ARCHIVE SEARCH TABLE OF CONTENTS
Diabetes Diabetes Care Clinical Diabetes Diabetes Spectrum
Copyright © 2008 by the American Diabetes Association.