ArticleBMC geriatrics2021
Does digital technology reduce health disparity? Investigating difference of depression stemming from socioeconomic status among Chinese older adults.
Article in BMC geriatrics, 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 12 papers, 2 of them syntheses that pooled it.
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Who cites it
12 citing papers in PubMed, 2 syntheses or guidelines pooled it.
- Association between digital smart device use and depression among older adults: systematic review and meta-analysis.BMC public health · 2026Pooled it
- Effectiveness of Digital Interventions for Preventing Alcohol Consumption in Pregnancy: Systematic Review and Meta-analysis.Journal of medical Internet research · 2022Pooled it
- A narrower access gap, yet persistent divides: the digital inequality among China's urban-rural older adults.BMC public health · 2026Article
- Associations between social frailty, use of digital device and depression among community-dwelling older adults: A population-based cross-sectional study.Geriatrics & gerontology international · 2025Article
- The Association Between the Digital Divide and Health Inequalities Among Older Adults in China: Nationally Representative Cross-Sectional Survey.Journal of medical Internet research · 2025Article
- Socioeconomic inequalities in the relationship between internet usage patterns and depressive symptoms: Evidence from a Chinese longitudinal study.Journal of global health · 2024Article
- The roles of health literacy and social support in the association between smartphone ownership and frailty in older adults: a moderated mediation model.BMC public health · 2024Article
- Article
- The longitudinal associations between perceived importance of the internet and depressive symptoms among a sample of Chinese adults.Frontiers in public health · 2023Article
- Social Isolation, Cognitive Function, and Depression Among Chinese Older Adults: Examining Internet Use as a Predictor and a Moderator.Frontiers in public health · 2022Article
- Impact of Internet Use on Mental Health among Elderly Individuals: A Difference-in-Differences Study Based on 2016-2018 CFPS Data.International journal of environmental research and public health · 2021Article
- Digital empowerment: Can the development of the smart health and elderly care enhance older adults' subjective well-being?Digital healthArticle
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
4 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
backgroundPrior studies on health disparity have shown that socioeconomic status is critical to inequality of health outcomes such as depression. However, two questions await further investigation: whether disparity in depression correlated with socioeconomic status will become larger when depression becomes severer, and whether digital technology will reduce the disparity in depression correlated with socioeconomic status. Our study aims to answer the above two questions.
methodsBy using the dataset from China Health and Retirement Longitudinal Study 2015, we use quantile regression models to examine the association between socioeconomic status and depression across different quantiles, and test the moderating effect of digital technology.
resultsOur study obtains four key findings. First, the negative effects of socioeconomic status on depression present an increasing trend at high quantiles. Second, Internet usage exacerbates the disparity in depression associated with education level on average, but reduces this disparity associated with education level at high quantiles. Third, Internet usage reduces the disparity in depression associated with income on average and at high quantiles. Fourth, mobile phone ownership has almost no moderating effect on the relationship between socioeconomic status and depression.
conclusionsOur findings suggest the potential use of digital technology in reducing disparity in depression correlated with socioeconomic status among middle-aged and aged individuals in developing countries.
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