Health and Media

Unlike in the past, internet connectivity isn’t a luxury—it’s as necessary as electricity. But currently, this critical lifeline for veterans hangs in the balance as the Affordable Connectivity Program (ACP) approaches the end of its funding at the end of May. The ACP is a key factor in ensuring all veterans have connectivity, especially in rural areas. For many, the ACP can be life-saving.

There are several reasons why a telephone company with legacy copper cables might want to extract those cables. First, copper is valuable. It’s currently priced at an all-time high of more than $5 per pound. And who doesn’t love found money? Secondly, some carriers, such as AT&T, are trying to convert large swathes of their copper plant to fiber.

The rapid transition to a digital front door of healthcare prompted by the pandemic made evident disparities in who had access to digital tools. Like other healthcare organizations, at the beginning of the pandemic, we found disparities in access to patient portals and video visits. Digital disparities are driven by multiple factors including lack of internet access, devices, language-adapted platforms as well as limited digital literacy.

National narratives about youth well-being have increasingly focused on how to address the youth mental health crisis. While a multitude of complex factors are contributing to the growth of mental health challenges among young people, social media has often landed in the center of the conversation.

The House Commerce Committee's Subcommittee on Health voted to pass a two-year Medicare telehealth extension along with other legislation that expands reimbursement for health tech. The sponsor of the telehealth extension bill, Rep Buddy Carter (R-GA), said he sees no obstacles to the telehealth extension passing the full committee, nor any significant issues for the Commerce and Ways and Means Committees to come to an agreement on a two-year telehealth extension.

Though telehealth has the potential to significantly expand healthcare access, social determinants of health (SDOH) challenges like housing insecurity can hinder this access, depriving already vulnerable populations of much-needed healthcare services.

Internet technologies’ and platforms’ potential psychological consequences remain debated. While these technologies have spurred new forms of commerce, education, and leisure, many are worried that they might negatively affect individuals by, for example, displacing time spent on other healthy activities. Relevant findings to date have been inconclusive and of limited geographic and demographic scope.

Digital inclusion is considered a super social determinant of health and rests on four pillars: available and affordable broadband service, quality devices, digital skills and training, and technical support for using accessible applications. Evidence suggests two pathways through which digital inclusion and health equity are connected. The direct pathway is through increasing access to health care services.

Senators Brian Schatz (D-HI), Ted Cruz (R-TX), Chris Murphy (D-CT), and Katie Britt (R-AK) introduced new legislation to keep kids off social media and help protect them from its harmful impacts. The Kids Off Social Media Act updates legislation Schatz introduced last spring and would set a minimum age of 13 to use social media platforms and prevent social media companies from feeding algorithmically-targeted content to users under the age of 17.

Reps. Mike Kelly (R-PA), Mike Thompson (D-CA), and Adrian Smith (R-NE)  introduced H.R. 8151, bipartisan legislation that would permanently expand the list of practitioners eligible who provide telehealth services to include qualified physical therapists, occupational therapists, speech language pathologists, and audiologists. Currently, these practitioners do not have permanent authorization to deliver electronic or virtual care to their patients. Families have come to rely on telehealth since the COVID-19 pandemic.