Cleveland’s Win is the Digital Divide’s Loss

The National Science Foundation today announced that Cleveland will share $2.7million with 6 other cities testing innovative methods to end the digital divide.  Public Health Innovators is proud to work with DigitalC to bring affordable broadband to underserved urban neighborhoods.  But we know that just making service available is not enough.  Through partnerships with area health systems, we will help patients…

Tele-Mental Health Equity: Possible but Unlikely?

As part of its “Coping Through COVID” series, The Cleveland Plain Dealer recently published an article underscoring the need for more Black mental health counselors. Of course, the well-recognized excess burden of the pandemic among Blacks, who are already facing multiple vulnerabilities, creates more demand for mental health services. And reluctance in the Black community to seek mental health care…

What HIV Vaccine Preparedness Teaches us about COVID Vaccine Distribution

I recently found a 1995 presentation with findings from my doctoral dissertation that are highly pertinent to COVID Vaccine trials. The study included anonymized interviews and surveys with the first high risk (#vulnerable) HIV vaccine efficacy trial participants. No space here to share the results but I thought readers would find the questions of interest:–Motivations for joining the trial (altruism,…

Digital Divide-Telehealth’s Achille’s Heel

Originally published at innovationmatch.ama-assn.org Telehealth has become a life-saving defense against COVID-19 because it enables infected individuals to be treated from home, reducing the number of contagious people circulating in the community, reducing exposure of health care workers, and preserving scarce PPE resources. Healthcare providers have transitioned to telehealth at breakneck speed, taking advantage of loosened federal and state regulations…

Public Health: The Crucial Missing Ingredient in Health Tech

Originally published at covid19healthtech.com “We will not bring the COVID-19 pandemic under control until we see and address gaps that keep tens of millions of people from meaningfully using technology.” — Amy Sheon Healthcare’s Looming Disaster is Hidden in Plain Sight Health systems and technologists have a vital opportunity to mitigate the ravages of the COVID-19 pandemic by addressing a…

Conference Report: Digital Skills: A Hidden ‘Super’ Social Determinant of Health

Originally published at iaphs.org The “Digital Skills and Connectivity as Social Determinants of Health (SDOH)” panel at the IAPHS conference in October 2018 represented an unprecedented reach across sectors to shed light on a hidden SDOH. Dr. Chris Gibbons from the  FCCs Connect2Health Task Force shared that the “future of the nation’s health is fundamentally premised on the widespread availability and accessibility…

The FCC Learns About HealthDataMatters.org!

I had the privilege of helping to organize a visit to Cleveland by the Federal Communication Commission’s Connect2Health Task Force earlier this week. The Task Force’s “Beyond the Beltway Series” is an opportunity for FCC Commissioners to understand and promote the “transformative power of broadband technologies and next-generation communications services to improve access to health care services regardless of geography, time, distance…