Digital Divide

Seventy percent of the U.S. adult population in 2007 was online and 80 percent of them say they have searched for health information. But data from two studies—the Pew Internet & American Life Project in 2008 and HINTS, a 2005 NIH research project focused on use of the Internet for cancer information—paint a radically different story of Internet health information access among the haves and have-nots. Twenty-five percent of Americans whose household incomes are $20,000 a year or less had broadband at home in 2008—down from 28 percent in 2007. Forty-three percent of African Americans reported having home broadband, compared with 57 percent of whites and 56 percent of English-speaking Hispanics. (https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/news/magazine/fall09digitaldivide/)  Contact:  [email protected]