Abstract
Virtual care spread rapidly at the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic. Restricting in-person contact contributed to reducing the spread of infection and saved lives. However, the benefits of virtual care were not evenly distributed within and across social groups, and existing inequalities became exacerbated for those unable to fully access to, or benefit from virtual services. This “perspective” paper discusses the extent to which challenges in virtual care access and use in the context of COVID-19 follow the Inverse Care Law. The latter stipulates that the availability and quality of health care is inversely proportionate to the level of population health needs. We highlight the inequalities affecting some disadvantaged populations’ access to, and use of public and private virtual care, and contrast this with a utopian vision of technology as the “solution to everything”. In public and universal health systems, the Inverse Care Law may manifests itself in access issues, capacity, and/or lack of perceived benefit to use digital technologies, as well as in data poverty. For commercial “Direct-To-Consumer” services, all of the above may be encouraged via a consumerist (i.e., profit-oriented) approach, limited and episodic services, or the use of low direct cost platforms. With virtual care rapidly growing, we set out ways forward for policy, practice, and research to ensure virtual care benefits for everyone, which include: (1) pay more attention to “capabilities” supporting access and use of virtual care; (2) consider digital technologies as a basic human right that should be automatically taken into account, not only in health policies, but also in social policies; (3) take more seriously the impact of the digital economy on equity, notably through a greater state involvement in co-constructing “public health value” through innovation; and (4) reconsider the dominant digital innovation research paradigm to better recognize the contexts, factors, and conditions that influence access to and use of virtual care by different groups.
DOI
10.3390/ijerph191710591
Publication Date
2022-08-25
Publication Title
International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health
Volume
19
Issue
17
Publisher
MDPI AG
ISSN
1660-4601
Embargo Period
2024-11-19
First Page
10591
Last Page
10591
Recommended Citation
Alami, H., Lehoux, P., Shaw, S., & et al. (2022) 'Virtual Care and the Inverse Care Law: Implications for Policy, Practice, Research, Public and Patients', International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 19(17), pp. 10591-10591. MDPI AG: Available at: https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph191710591
