Technology, community, and equity: Considerations for collecting social determinants data

Abstract

Gathering detailed information on an individual’s neighborhood environment is becoming increasingly recognized as a crucial component of understanding the impact that social determinants have on individual and public health, and this has been further highlighted by the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. Emerging research clearly demonstrates COVID-19’s differential impact on underserved and rural communities, and it is imperative to adequately capture important neighborhood-level predictors of health outcomes to better understand the extent to which these communities have been affected, and to equitably promote their recovery and healing. mHealth tools have drastically transformed the framework of data collection within clinical and population health research and can significantly reduce accessibility barriers for research participants to allow for convenient, continuous real-time health and activity space assessments. Digital interventions leveraging remote data collection, and providing study participants with requisite devices when necessary, serves to bridge the digital divide that would otherwise preclude rural populations’ participation in key research opportunities for advancing health equity.