Digital health literacy for older adults: a rapid scoping review

Digital health literacy is essential for empowering older adults to make important decisions about their health. We conducted a rapid scoping review to investigate digital health literacy and associated strategies, interventions and resources to support digital health literacy skills among older adults. MEDLINE, Embase and the Cochrane library were searched for relevant studies from inception until Dec 2024. Following a pilot-test, screening and data abstraction were conducted by one reviewer, with a second reviewer verifying the screening decisions and extracted data. A descriptive summary was provided for the included studies. The results are reported using the PRISMA extension for scoping reviews. After reviewing 14,398 titles/abstracts, and 51 full-text articles, 13 studies were included. To measure digital health literacy, five studies used the validated eHEALS; seven used a mix of digital literacy and health literacy scales, whereas one used a health literacy scale. Eleven studies examined educational programs and two studies examined tailored websites as the intervention. Barriers for educational programs included lack of access to resources, instructor turnover, and transportation challenges. Facilitators included engaging programs, easy-to-use materials, and alignment with the skill levels among others. For tailored websites, the main barrier was the single-sitting design, whereas co-design with older adults, hands-on-features, plain language were facilitators. Definitions and measurement of digital health literacy was inconsistent across studies. Only two interventions were examined to improve digital health literacy. Further research in this area is warranted.