COVID-19 has changed the way we communicate and interact globally, underscoring deep inequities in access to the internet and digital technology, particularly among urban-dwelling older adults with fixed, low incomes. The lack of access to user-friendly technological devices and/or broadband services, combined with a lack of proficiency in their usage, is often referred to as “the digital divide” and is a long-recognized problem in communities of color, particularly among older adults. This disparity leaves elders functionally impaired and at risk. A 2021 AARP report published in partnership with the Humana Foundation offers this perspective: “Seniors isolated by lack of access to reliable technology face personal hardships including physical and mental health issues that affect the quality and duration of their lives.”

While digitally based communications have begun to penetrate all aspects of our lives—e.g., accessing medical care, registering for vaccines and other services, verifying information, obtaining essentials like groceries and other necessities, worshiping, and socializing—many elders have been ill-prepared for the sudden, pervasive social shift. Greater Newark, like many urban communities where profound disparities in health care outcomes were already a concern, was particularly hit hard by COVID-19 illness and death. Already vulnerable low-income elders were suddenly confronted with challenges related to the rapidly changing way in which medical information, healthcare, and related services were delivered.

Rutgers University Center for Health Excellence and Community Engagement (CHECE) and the Advocates for Healthy Living Initiative (AHLI) surveyed older adults about their experiences and needs related to digital communications as part of the Senior Health Connect Digital Divide initiative. In collaboration with community partners, we organized students and peer volunteers to provide one-on-one and group training designed to help seniors become proficient in using tablets.

The Senior Health Connect (SHC) project aims to increase the availability of digital technology and proficiency in its use for older adults who lack access, thereby closing the digital divide gap while simultaneously addressing health inequities in this area. The project team is working to expand its transdisciplinary intergenerational community engagement model (TICEM) to increase outreach to the population, train and recruit peer community health advocates, and design best-practice training methods as implications for further research.

The SHC project team collaborated with seven partners at nine sites in Newark, East Orange, Hillside, Roselle, and Roselle Park. A total of 108 participants have completed the training to date, with 25 of them being peer trained. Each partner proposed individual methods tailored to their specific population’s needs.

Improving digital health literacy shows great promise toward ameliorating existing health disparities (Philbin, 2019; Sieck, 2021), but this success depends on increasing the capacity of seniors to harness the skills needed to use these platforms safely and effectively. At this critical juncture, we must adapt digital health literacy programs to the learning methods and techniques most suitable for older adults.

Keywords: Digital divide, Digital Health Literacy, intergenerational, ageism, health equity and access for seniors.