Health IT

Mobile health called ‘powerful equalizer’ for health disparities

Aetna Foundation leaders Dr. Garth Graham, MaryLynn Ostrowski and Alyse Sabina made their case in a post on the Health Affairs blog.

By Neil Versel on August 07, 2015 5:03 pm

Mobile health tools will be “a powerful equalizer” in terms of geographic health disparities, according to executives from the Aetna Foundation.

Aetna Foundation leaders Dr. Garth Graham, MaryLynn Ostrowski and Alyse Sabina said in a post on the Health Affairs blog:

“Thanks to unrelenting advances in portable technology, we can now provide the tools to empower communities and their residents to create their own sustainable changes in health-related behaviors. Such tools are already encouraging people to adopt best practices that lead to better health outcomes by teaching about and encouraging exercise, good nutrition, and other beneficial behaviors.”

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They cited Pew Research Center data showing that 84 percent of low-income adults in the U.S. own or at least have access to mobile phones, and a third of all cell phone owners have looked up health information on their phones.

The authors also noted that residential zip code is a stronger predictor of health status than race or even genetics, they noted. “[A]ccess to care, access to health information, and quality of life are all affected by where one lives,” Graham, Ostrowski and Sabina wrote.

“Data-gathering can serve as a foundation” for addressing why certain ZIP codes have such poor overall health, they added.

Interestingly, on MedCity News‘ live MedHeads webcast Friday, Forbes Contributor David Kroll said that genomic research also suffers when data from low-income and minority communities is not available.

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