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Facilitating rural eHealth – what’s the problem?

Author(s): Barbara Fersch

Thursday 15  |   11:40-12:00

Room: TP51

Session: Care and technologies in a digitalised society

The aim of this paper is to present and discuss the analysis of group interviews with professionals and volunteers involved with the provision or facilitation of digital health and welfare services to digitally vulnerable people in rural areas in four European countries (Denmark, France, the Netherlands, and Portugal). Even though digital services might be especially beneficial in rural areas, where distances to clinics and other facilities are larger and infrastructure is scarcer, studies have shown that rural populations do have a demographic profile that makes more vulnerable to digital exclusion (e.g. Digitale Sundhedskompetencer i Syddanmark, 2023). With the help of concept of health and digital capital (Park, 2017; Schneider-Kamp, 2021) we will shed light on the barriers and specific dynamics of exclusion that are discussed in the empirical material.