COVID-19 and digital inequalities: Reciprocal impacts and mitigation strategies

Abstract

With more than three billion people in isolation, the status of digital spaces is switching from an amenity to a necessity, as they become not only the main way to access information and services, but also one of the only remaining vectors for economic, educational, and leisure activities as well as for social interactions to take place. However, not all are equals in terms of access to networks or connected devices, or when it comes to the skills required to navigate computerized spaces optimally. Digital inequalities were already existing, yet the COVID-19 crisis is exacerbating them dramatically. On the one hand, the crisis will worsen digital inequalities within the population. On the other hand, digital inequalities represent a major risk factor of vulnerability for exposure to the virus itself, and for the non-sanitary consequences of the crisis. Therefore, this paper aims at exploring the reciprocal impacts of the COVID-19 crisis and digital inequalities, and to propose operative solutions to help fight the nefarious consequences of the crisis. We first describe how digital inequalities are a determinant of health. We then investigate how COVID-19 can potentiate digital inequalities, and how digital inequalities potentiate vulnerability to COVID-19. Finally, in order to contribute to the mitigation of this crisis, we propose a set of multi-layered strategies focusing on actionability that can be implemented at multiple structural levels, ranging from governmental to corporate and community levels.

Bridging the Digital Divide: A National Survey Assessing Public Readiness for Digital Health Strategies Against COVID-19 within the United Kingdom

“…Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, digital exclusion through reduced access to infrastructure and digital literacy had been viewed as key social determinant of health and national commitments had been made to target the issue 12 . Whilst our nding of digital inequality within the study population is not novel itself, we contribute to increasing evidence suggesting that digital inequality also potentiates vulnerability to the pandemic, thereby further increasing health inequalities 13 .…”

“…Whilst digital health technologies can improve the speed, reach and cost of many traditional public health measures, there are also speci c barriers to their e cacy; ownership of suitable hardware, internet access and digital literacy can greatly impact effective coverage across population groups 11 . Crucially, these three factors, which form the concept of 'digital inclusion' 12 , are considered to be important social determinants of health in themselves 13 . Research has demonstrated that groups who are at the highest risk of digital exclusion 14 are the elderly, those of Black and South Asian ethnic origin, those from deprived areas and those with low educational attainment; the same groups who suffer from the poorest COVID-19 health outcomes.…”

COVID-19 open source data sets: a comprehensive survey

“…A list open source data sets on the Kaggle can be found at. 18 A crowd-sourced list of open access COVID-19 projects can be found at. 19…”

“…Although digital technologies have significantly aided the combat against COVID-19, they have also provided the ground for vulnerabilities that can be exploited in terms of social behaviors [120]. Fake news/misinformation sharing on social media platforms [15], racist hatred [16], propaganda (against 5G technologies and governments) [17], and online financial scams [18] are few forms of digital platform exploitation in COVID-19 pandemic. Fake news and rumors have been spread about lock-downs policies, over-crowded places, and death cases on social media platforms.…”

“…Therefore, the COVID-19 pandemic has necessitated collection of new data sets regarding human mobility, epidemiology, psychology, and radiology to aid scientific efforts [14]. It must be noted that while digital technologies are aiding in the combat against COVID-19, they are also being utilized for spread of misinformation [15], hatred [16], propaganda [17], and online financial scams [18].…”