Personal Health Records are Designed for People Like Us

Current approaches to designing, implementing and evaluating personal health record systems reflect the attributes and assumptions of well-educated and well to-do users (People like Us: PLUs) rather than the needs of the most disadvantaged in society (the disempowered, disengaged and disconnected: DDDs). These electronic systems for increasing accessibility to personal health information may accentuate rather than mitigate the emerging eHealth divide. Using a PubMed review of literature on personal health record systems, we identified only seven of 73 papers, and one of 29 abstracts which made specific mention of users who were disadvantaged by low literacy levels or difficulties with access to technology. This work is part of a larger study into personal health records and disadvantage.