Bridging the Digital Divide for urban seniors: community partnership.

Computers and the Internet offer older adults resources for improving health. For many older adults, the "Digital Divide" (the social, economic, and demographic factors that exist between individuals who use computers and those who do not) is a barrier to taking advantage of these resources. Bridging the Digital Divide by making computers and the Internet more accessible and making online health information more usable for older adults has the potential to improve health of older adults.

Reliability and validity testing of the short-form health survey in a sample of community-dwelling African American older adults.

The Short-Form Health Survey (SF-12; Ware, Kosinski, & Keller, 1996) is a widely used screening device for measuring physical and mental health to assess quality of life. However, limited psychometric data exist for older adults, especially minority aging samples. Findings from Resnick and Nahm (2001) suggest revising traditional SF-12 scoring for use in older adults because of different factor loadings for two questions.

The Digital Divide and urban older adults.

Computers and the Internet offer older adults opportunities and resources for independent living. However, many urban older adults do not use computers. This study examined the demographic, health, and social activities of urban older adults to determine variables that might predict the use and nonuse of computers in this population.