Bryse Gailliard
Research Mentor: Angela Ebreo
Mentor Department: Personal Assets & System Strengths Program/CSHPE, Education
Author(s): Bryse Gailliard, Jeremiah Taveras, Angela Ebreo
Session: Session 2 (10:00 AM – 10:50 AM)
Presentation Type: Poster 30
Abstract
Understanding and monitoring personal health is an essential component of self care, particularly for those experiencing chronic conditions. Having access to medical technology leads to informed decisions and proactive health behaviors. Health information has become increasingly placed online with 86.9% of United States hospitals offering digital health services (APHA,2025). By 2050 the number of people over 65 will increase from 7.7% to 15.6%(Cota,Et. Al, 2015). Many persons in this age group (85.2%; Barrio-Cortes et al, 2021) have more than one chronic health condition. Existing literature reviews demonstrate that social influence (Wu,Et. Al,2024), and difficulties with technology (e.g., lack of guidance, lack of knowledge and confidence) are key influences in how elders interact with health technologies(Vaportzis et al., 2017). This project is an update of existing literature reviews. We limited our searches by using key words including “elderly, health portal, patient portal, health information, and accessâ€and searching for articles published in English. We found that most studies did not differentiate between racial/cultural groups or take into account cultural differences in elders. No study to our knowledge examined differences between adoption of health technology between racial groups. Median age of participants was on the higher end, making results less generalizable to the full range of elderly adults. More research is needed on how to improve accessibility and tailor digital health information delivery to diverse users. Most studies focus mainly on knowledge acquisition, ignoring other motivations that influence elder’s technology use. We are currently collecting survey data to address some of these gaps by examining cultural factors and elders’ perception of health related technology, specifically patient portals.
