Geographic Disparities in Access to Broadband, Ambulance Services, and Health Care and Implications for Telehealth
Celia Jewell, Heidi O’Connor, Thomas E. Griffin, Sarah M. Mah, Brianna L. Holston, Erin Troiano, Yvonne C. Jonk · 2026
Read Geographic Disparities in Access to Broadband, Ambulance Services, and Health Care and Implications for Telehealth by Celia Jewell, Heidi O’Connor, Thomas E. Griffin, Sarah M. Mah, Brianna L. Holston, Erin Troiano, Yvonne C. Jonk (2026) in the Tower of Babel, a free online library of public-domain works preserved in clean, searchable text. No sign-up. The full text is served as a plain-text file at a predictable URL, where text is present: https://antarctic-labs.com/tower-of-babel/pmc-13589274.txt.
Description
Celia Jewell and six co-authors mapped where people in the United States live far from broadband, ambulance services, and health care, in a study published in 2026. Telehealth could help close those gaps, but only where internet speeds are fast enough to support it. The team combined broadband maps, drive-time data, and census data across 41 states to identify three kinds of service deserts.
About 11.9 million people lived in broadband deserts, and most of them lived in rural areas. Among rural residents, close to a million lived far from both ambulances and health care but had broadband fast enough for telehealth. About 650,000 people lived in all three deserts at once. Western states did worst on each measure. Rural households also had lower rates of computer ownership and broadband subscription than urban households. The authors link access to care closely to broadband infrastructure.
Catalog record
| CREATOR | Celia Jewell, Heidi O’Connor, Thomas E. Griffin, Sarah M. Mah, Brianna L. Holston, Erin Troiano, Yvonne C. Jonk |
|---|---|
| YEAR | 2026 |
| COLLECTION | PAPERS |
| FORMAT | TXT |
| FILE SIZE | 25 KB |
| VERSION | 1.0 |
| LICENSE | CC BY 4.0 |
| RIGHTS | CC BY |
| SOURCE | Europe PMC |