Broadband internet access as a social determinant of health in the early COVID-19 pandemic in U.S. counties.

ABSTRACT: Recent work suggests that internet access was key in delivering life-saving health information about the COVID-19 pandemic. This paper expands on these findings by focusing on the early pandemic in the United States to examine the role of internet access on masking and COVID-19 incidence and mortality. Using county-level data from the American Community Survey, The New York Times, and other sources, weighted OLS regression models with state fixed-effects were used to predict the association of internet access on self-reported masking in July 2020 and COVID-19 incidence and mortality during multiple periods from July-October 2020. Results suggest that internet access is associated with a substantial decrease in a county's COVID-19 incidence and mortality. Most strikingly, models predict tha

SUBMITTER: Allen S 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC11764479 | biostudies-literature | 2025 Mar

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature