The Social Atom: Why the Rich Get Richer, Cheaters Get Caught, and Your Neighbor Usually Looks Like You, by Mark Buchanan
(blog: http://thesocialatom.blogspot.com/)

Connected: The Surprising Power of Our Social Networks and How They Shape Our Lives, by Nicholas A. Christakis and James H. Fowler
(New York Times article: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/13/magazine/13contagion-t.html?pagewanted=all)

If happiness and obesity are “catching” then maybe health engagement is too. Tell your friends (and the friends of your friends).

Pew Internet’s wireless data has recently been heralded as a sign that the “digital divide” between whites and blacks is closing. But is it truly closing in terms of using the internet to create, gather & share health resources?

People concerned about access to health information & resources should also look beyond our traditional definitions of digital inequality. It’s not just race & education that predict access, but health status too. The Pew Internet Project’s latest data shows that there has been very little progress in the last two years when it comes to internet penetration among people living with chronic disease and disability.

I would love to include cultural questions in my research, but meantime, I’ll also look to other sources such as the work being done by the Greenlining Institute, the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies, and the many academics & government officials who are studying these issues.

See, for example:

http://broadbandimperatives.wordpress.com/

I honestly don’t think it does. I have been conferring lately with African American professors and they tend to believe that the issue is really NOT technological but a profound cultural one. A few years back we were witness to the extent of this cultural disconnect. I haven’t seen any sign that we have done work to re/create the necessary environment that would help convince African Americans that they can trust the medical system and any of its proxies.

Like it or not, we, the producers of resources that empower patients are also proxies of the American medical system.

Thanks for continuing to document the unstoppable rise of the (better) informed patients.

But, as usual, I am raising the issue that has been disturbing me for years. You, like most people, speak of the e-patients as if they are representative of the general population. But you remember that the study conducted by Barbara Rimer et al on some of the ACOR lists showed that 97% of the users were Caucasian.

The Internet is faceless and is helping us forget that for a variety of reasons, including many cultural ones, some minorities are singularly underrepresented in the world of the rising e-patients.

The Society for Participatory Medicine MUST deal proactively with this issue, from the Get-Go. Otherwise we will have meetings about participatory medicine that will look like most of the medical meetings I have attended over the last 15 years, where the voices of patient advocates representing minorities are never heard.

Thankfully, the SPM is just beginning. This is offering a rare opportunity to build a medical society much more in tune with the social, cultural and racial diversity found today in the American population. We should all jump at the opportunity. Will you ever look into cultural differences for your Pew research?

This Pew data screams to be in boldface:

42% of adults know someone who’s been helped by medical information on the internet.

3% know someone who’s been harmed.

While I completely understand providers’ concerns about the risks of bad info, the evidence seems to be that people are smart enough to find the good stuff and not get hurt by the bad stuff.

Let’s all do everything we can to further that trend: get better at providing and finding good stuff, and help each other get smarter about avoiding the bad stuff!

Me, when I find something interesting, if it’s non-trivial I bring it to my docs – and discuss it with peers. Nothin’ like cross-checking real-world layman’s experience and professionals’ perspectives!