Latinos Online: Summary chart, Pew Internet & American Life Project

We held a successful Advisory Group Meeting of the PCHIT initiative yesterday (and will post about that shortly), and one of the many pearls we received was from Susannah Fox, regarding the characterization of Internet access among populations. Through her research, she characterizes Internet access as a “dimmer” rather than an “on/off” switch.

She presented a visual example to us in a “thermometer” diagram that she created as part of her report on Latinos Online, published in March, 2007. She is planning to produce similar data on Internet access as characterized by device (e.g. cell phone) as well. She’s given us permission to reproduce the visual here.

Ending the use of the term “Digital Divide”

The approach of the Pew Internet and American Life Project seems useful moving forward as we think about bringing patients and their families of all backgrounds into the care experience. With that in mind, I am going to discontinue the use of the term “Digital Divide.” I don’t think it accurately describes Internet access across populations in the United States.

Your comments on this are welcome, of course!

I was perusing through the Department of Veterans Affairs National Center for Health Promotion and Disease Prevention’s excellent December, 2007 issue of Health Power! Prevention News, and happened on a review of this systematic analysis of the impacts of using pedometers to increase physical activity and improve health (Bravata DM, Smith-Spangler C, Sundaram V, et al. Using Pedometers to Increase Physical Activity and Improve Health: A Systematic Review. Jama 2007;298:2296-304.)

More on that later, though. It stimulated me to write a post about how I use the pedometer in my work life, and my journey to develop “The Walking Meeting,” the coolest part of getting things done that I have added to my repertoire.

So what is this? About 3 years ago now, I was offered a pedometer as part of a test of a walking challenge. I have since upgraded to a non-freebie variety, as recommended to me by Mark Graban, publisher of the well regarded LEAN Blog. In the LEAN world, pedometers are great for time-motion studies.

They have been great for bringing fitness into the work environment, too, and changing conversations. My other nickname for this is “WWW” or “work while walking” (or maybe “walk while working), and here’s the recipe:

Read the rest of this entry »

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