The role of digital literacy in achieving health equity in the third millennium society: A literature review

Abstract

Healthcare in the third millennium is largely delivered through systems involving the use of the technological devices and services, foremost among them telemedicine. For the adequate delivery of digital medicine services, however, it is necessary for users to be digitally literate, that is, able to consciously make use of technology. In order to understand how relevant digital literacy is in determining the effectiveness of e-Health services, we performed a traditional literature review on 3 major databases by combining the terms “Digital Literacy” and “Computer Literacy” with the terms “Telemedicine” and “Telehealth”. Starting from an initial library of 1,077 papers, we selected 38 articles. At the outcome of the search, we found that digital literacy is a pivotal element in conditioning the effectiveness of telemedicine and digital medicine services in general, however, with some limitations.

Closing the Digital Divide in Interventions for Substance Use Disorder

“…Perhaps the least well-studied barrier related to SDoH is digital literacy, or the ability to find, evaluate, and communicate information using digital platforms, which is required to use digital health tools to their full capacity [ 29 ]. Just as overall health literacy has been positively correlated with improved preventive behaviors and health outcomes, digital literacy similarly empowers individuals to understand, meaningfully engage with, and apply content provided [ 30 ].…”

The characteristics and role of digital literacy in an effective health protection

“…Campanozzi et al [ 20 ] seek to assess, through a review of the literature from the past decade, the influence of digital literacy on access to telemedicine services. Their objective is to determine whether high or low levels of digital literacy play a role in determining the utilization of telemedicine services and to what extent.…”

Anthropologically oriented strategies of interaction in the Human-Computer system

“…The growing role of the use of computer systems for health preservation, monitoring systems of the state of the surrounding environment actualizes the issue of digital literacy for effective and adequate use of providing HCI [20,21]. Research by scientists shows that the issue of digital literacy of users of technological services in the health care system is a key component of their use.…”