When Going Digital Becomes a Necessity: Ensuring Older Adults’ Needs for Information, Services, and Social Inclusion During COVID-19

ABSTRACT

Older adults are in triple jeopardy during COVID-19: compared with younger people, older adults are (1) more likely to develop serious conditions and experience higher mortality; (2) less likely to obtain high quality information or services online; and (3) more likely to experience social isolation and loneliness. Hybrid solutions, coupling online and offline strategies, are invaluable in ensuring the inclusion of vulnerable populations. Most of these solutions require no new inventions. Finding the financial resources for a rapid, well-coordinated implementation is the biggest challenge. Setting up the requisite support systems and digital infrastructure is important for the present and future pandemics.

KEYWORDS:

• Global health crises
• digital inequality
• telehealth
• aging
• social interaction
• technology
• eHealth literacy
• lifelong learning

Key Points

• Older adults require special attention from policy makers, tech companies, and other professions during COVID-19;

• Going digital alone is insufficient in reaching vulnerable populations like older adults;

• Coupling online and offline strategies are invaluable in addressing the challenges older adults face;

• Rapid, well-coordinated implementation of the requisite support systems and digital infrastructure are important for the present and future pandemics.

Acknowledgments

We would like to thank the editor and anonymous reviewers for their constructive feedback on our manuscript, and Dr. Zhiyong Lu for his constructive feedback on an earlier version of this manuscript.

Additional information

Funding

BX is supported in part by NIH grants [R21AG052761] and [R21AG052060]; NC is supported in part by NIH grants [4 P01-AG 17211], [R21-AG061431], [1R01-AG064529]; NIDILRR grant [90REGE0012-01-00]; KF is supported in part by NIH grant [R01AG046460]; JK is supported in part by NIH grants [P30-AG008017], [P30-AG024978], [U2C-AG0543701]; Department of Veteran Affairs [IIR 17-144].