Public economics

Pathology

Business

Social distance

Equity (law)

Disease

Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19)

Economic growth

Infectious disease (medical specialty)

Political science

Health care

Economics

Health equity

Telemedicine

Public relations

Digital health

Telehealth

Health policy

Medicine

Social determinants of health

Environmental health

Journal of Medical Internet Research

Digital health innovations have been rapidly implemented and scaled to provide solutions to health delivery challenges posed by the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic. This has provided people with ongoing access to vital health services while minimizing their potential exposure to infection and allowing them to maintain social distancing. However, these solutions may have unintended consequences for health equity. Poverty, lack of access to digital health, poor engagement with digital health for some communities, and barriers to digital health literacy are some factors that can contribute to poor health outcomes. We present the Digital Health Equity Framework, which can be used to consider health equity factors. Along with person-centered care, digital health equity should be incorporated into health provider training and should be championed at the individual, institutional, and social levels. Important future directions will be to develop measurement-based approaches to digital health equity and to use these findings to further validate and refine this model.

Digital Health Equity and COVID-19: The Innovation Curve Cannot Reinforce the Social Gradient of Health