Exploring the Digital Divide among the Bhutanese Refugee Community during COVID-19: Engaged Research in Action

The digital divide proved a critical barrier to accessing information and healthcare during the COVID-19 pandemic and negatively impacted the Bhutanese refugee community. Moving beyond a technological model of the digital divide that highlights a lack of access to computers and the internet, we enga...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:International journal of environmental research and public health 2022-12, Vol.19 (24), p.16854
Main Authors: Cohen, Jeffrey H, Maleku, Arati, Pyakurel, Sudarshan, Suzuki, Taku, Raut, Shambika, Montiel Ishino, Francisco Alejandro
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Access to information
Bhutan - epidemiology
Community
Computers
Coronaviruses
COVID-19
COVID-19 - epidemiology
Data collection
Digital Divide
Environmental factors
Health care
Health disparities
Humans
Internet access
Medical research
Mixed methods research
Pandemics
Personal protective equipment
Refugees
Citations: Items that this one cites
Items that cite this one
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:The digital divide proved a critical barrier to accessing information and healthcare during the COVID-19 pandemic and negatively impacted the Bhutanese refugee community. Moving beyond a technological model of the digital divide that highlights a lack of access to computers and the internet, we engaged the community to co-produce a dynamic approach that identifies the impact of socio-cultural and socio-environmental factors as well. Our paper reports on our community-academic research partnership and explores how the digital divide exacerbates health disparities in a midwestern Bhutanese refugee community. Combining the efforts of the community, anthropologists and social workers, this paper reports on the health disparities that confront the community as well as interventions designed to mitigate social inequities.
ISSN:1660-4601
1661-7827
1660-4601
DOI:10.3390/ijerph192416854