Internet access is healthcare access. How are we doing?
Imagine trying to navigate the healthcare system without access to the internet. It’s not easy. Finding a doctor, making appointments, getting maps to the doctor’s office, and apps that give you your test results? Internet access is all but necessary. Imagine trying to wade through the healthcare system with unreliable internet access. It’s hard enough with good internet. Like so many things in our lives these days, speedy internet access is a soft requirement for getting much of anything done. It’s important to remember that access to fast internet is not universal in the US.
The Affordable Connectivity Program sought to address the issue. Improving access to healthcare is one of the reasons that the Biden Administration rolled out the program back in late 2021. With Congressional funding, the program helped millions of low-income households bridge the internet access gap.
We wanted to see just how well the program worked. So, Inside Medicine data guru Benjy Renton prepared these visuals. They tell a pretty clear story.
As you can see in the graphics above, there is a strong inverse relationship between median household income and enrollment in the Affordable Connectivity Program. That is, those with the least amount of income utilized the program at the highest rates. That was the intent, of course. Interestingly, as you can see on the map, the program helped in some concentrated areas that were not exactly Biden strongholds. Unfortunately, the Affordable Connectivity Program is no longer active because Congress decided not to continue funding it. The wind down is now well underway.
Why am I writing about this in Inside Medicine? Well, as researchers like my colleague and friend Dr. Alister Martin have found, internet access and health are intertwined. A new preprint/pre-peer review study by Dr. Martin and his colleagues provides some data supporting that case. Their paper reports that increased internet access under the Affordable Connectivity Program was associated with lower rates of both diabetes and hospital admissions. The effect sizes reported were small, but, if confirmed, they’re impressive nonetheless—especially considering how brief the intervention period was. Keeping the program in place would have been the better move, in my view. (If you agree, write your Congressperson!)
And for people interested in the intersection between civic engagement and health as a general issue, I encourage you to check out Dr. Martin’s project (which I have no involvement in), called A Healthier Democracy.
Questions? Ideas? Please leave a Comment!
Thanks to Benjy Renton for curating this Data Snapshot!