A new study warns that women, people over the age of 81, those with low levels of education and inhabitants of the regional autonomies are at the “greatest risk of accession to information and healthcare”. Put more simply, the ‘digital transition’ that politicians extoll is leaving the most vulnerable behind. According to the study, it has emerged that people with digital literacy, and higher levels of education, are leading much more healthy lives (are aware of health campaigns and information), whereas those without suffer a higher level of chronic illnesses and conditions, and have very little knowledge of how they can ‘help themselves’. “People say that ‘everything is on the net’ – but older people have no access to this”, study coordinator Tânia Gaspar de Matos explains. Bottom line: health professionals need to communicate more and better.
