{"doi":"10.17615/02yj-5k72","title":"Health Disparities and the Digital Divide: The Relationship between Communication Inequalities and Quality of Life among Women in a Nationwide Prospective Cohort Study in the United States","abstract":"Background: Communication inequalities can affect health-seeking behaviors yet the relationship between Internet use and overall health is inconclusive. Communication-related inequalities vary by race/ethnicity and SES but existing research primarily includes middle-class Whites. We therefore examined the relationship between communication-related inequalities—measured by daily Internet use—and health-related quality of life (QOL) using a nationwide prospective cohort study in the United States that consists of primarily low income, minority women. Methods: We examined Internet use and QOL among participants in the Women’s Interagency HIV Study. Data collection occurred from October 2014-September 2015 in Chicago, New York, Washington DC, San Francisco, Atlanta, Chapel Hill, Birmingham/Jackson and Miami. We used multi-variable analyses to examine the relationship between daily Internet use and QOL. Results: The sample of 1,915 women was 73% African American and 15% Hispanic; 53% reported an annual income of ≤$12,000. Women with daily Internet use reported a higher QOL at six months, as did women with at least a high school diploma, income >$12,000, and non-White race; older women and those with reported drug use, depressive symptoms and loneliness had lower QOL. Conclusions: Overcoming communication inequalities may be one pathway through which to improve overall QOL and address public health priorities. Reducing communication-related inequalities—e.g, by providing reliable Internet access—and thus improving access to health promoting information, may lead to improved health outcomes.","journal":"UNC Libraries","year":2023,"id":415856,"datarank":0.0,"base_score":0.0,"endowment":0.0,"self_citation_contribution":0.0,"citation_network_contribution":0.0,"self_endowment_contribution":0.0,"citer_contribution":0.0,"corpus_percentile":null,"corpus_rank":null,"citation_count":0,"citer_count":0,"citers_with_citation_signal":0,"citers_with_endowment":0,"datacite_reuse_total":0,"is_dataset":false,"is_dataset_confidence":0.9592,"is_data_producer":false,"deposit_databanks":null,"is_oa":true,"file_count":0,"downloads":0,"has_version_chain":false,"published_date":"2023-01-01","fair_score":null,"fair_percentile":null,"algorithm_id":"datarank_citation_only_1hop_v6","ranking_scope":"data_only","authors":[{"id":301949,"name":"Elizabeth T. Golub","orcid":"0000-0001-5860-4913","position":1,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":591356,"name":"A.A. Adimora","orcid":null,"position":2,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":1010165,"name":"A. Adedimeji","orcid":null,"position":3,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":597009,"name":"D. Konkle-Parker","orcid":null,"position":4,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":407834,"name":"Gina M. Wingood","orcid":null,"position":5,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":1190909,"name":"T.E. Wilson","orcid":null,"position":6,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":942518,"name":"Jacob Moysés Cohen","orcid":null,"position":7,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":1190555,"name":"L.R. Metsch","orcid":"0000-0002-5414-0100","position":8,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":340336,"name":"Morgan M. Philbin","orcid":"0000-0001-7608-7921","position":9,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":311288,"name":"Daniel J. Feaster","orcid":"0000-0002-6172-7460","position":10,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":409543,"name":"Margaret Pereyra","orcid":"0000-0001-7200-8771","position":11,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":1197911,"name":"Margot E. Cohen","orcid":"0000-0001-6143-5356","position":12,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":1197913,"name":"Laxmi Goparaju","orcid":"0000-0003-4338-2056","position":13,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":1190920,"name":"Colin Parish","orcid":null,"position":0,"is_corresponding":true}],"reference_count":0,"raw_metadata":null,"created_at":"2026-07-19T01:22:15.958504Z","pmid":null,"pmcid":null,"fwci":null,"citation_percentile":null,"influential_citations":0,"oa_status":null,"license":null,"views":0,"total_file_size_bytes":0,"version_count":0,"fair_f":null,"fair_a":null,"fair_i":null,"fair_r":null,"fair_zscore":null,"fair_rationale":null,"fair_model":null,"fair_agent_version":null,"fair_fulltext_source":null,"fair_has_llm":null,"fair_computed_at":null,"clinical_trials":[],"software_tools":[],"db_accessions":[],"linked_datasets":[],"topics":[]}