Broadband For Rural Seniors: Much More Than Email

As the first Baby Boomers turn 65 this year, they join the 13 percent of Americans that age or older. And that cohort is growing. While communities struggle to find the funding and infrastructure to cope with the aging, one area is particularly at risk — rural America. One remedy that's being considered is adding broadband-enabled services, including telemedicine and other online health tools.

A recent joint report from Humboldt State University's California Center for Rural Policy (CCRP) and the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) notes:

"Despite living in the countryside where open space is plentiful and there is often significant agricultural production, rural older adults have higher rates of overweight/obesity, physical inactivity and food insecurity than older adults living in suburban areas. All three conditions are risk factors for heart disease, diabetes and repeated falls."

Broadband can be used to bridge the distances and isolation of rural life, but services like telemedicine require more than dial-up and low-capacity DSL. One author of the report notes that medical services remain a distant goal until there is widespread and adequate broadband access in rural areas.

Strapped for cash, many localities are looking for innovative ways to improve health care delivery to sparsely populated areas. With a large population of retirees and other seniors, Arizona now has four counties — all rural — with between 22 and 32 percent of residents over 65. According to one news report, the state is exploring "the use of telemedicine, the opportunity to use video and Web-based technology to provide medical care for people in rural areas remotely."

No one suggests that broadband will solve all the health care problems of rural seniors, but more and more communities are seeing it as a powerful tool yet to be fully employed.

Many Baby Boomers Turn 65 in 2011

The Health Status and Unique Health Challenges of Rural Older Adults in California (CCRP)

More Evidence that Broadband Enhances the Lives of Senior Citizens (Broadband Expanded)

Arizona's Rural Elderly Lacking Access to Medical Care, Services (Tuscon Sentinel)