CLOSE MENU
A new study in JAMA Network Open describes patterns of telehealth use before and during the COVID-19 pandemic among children in the Bronx.
The study was funded by a CUNY Interdisciplinary Research Grant (IRG) and led by Dr. Chloe Teasdale, associate professor in the Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics and investigator for the CUNY Institute for Implementation Science in Population Health (ISPH). The study team included ISPH Research Scientist Dr. Madhura Rane, Dr. Geetha Gopalan of the Silberman School of Social Work at Hunter College, as well as colleagues from Montefiore Health System and Albert Einstein College of Medicine.
The retrospective cohort study utilized data from over 680,000 pediatric primary care visits from 2020 to 2023 and found that telehealth visits peaked at 70.5% of all appointments in April 2020. The highest telehealth use occurred early in the first months of the pandemic (March and August 2020), when 34.7% of all pediatric primary care visits between conducted virtually. By the same period in 2023, only 1.9% of visits were virtual, indicating an 11% yearly decline.
The study also found that Hispanic children and those from lower-income neighborhoods were most likely to have utilized telehealth during the pandemic’s peak, despite anticipated equity challenges. In addition, adolescents (15-18 years) were most likely to use telehealth in 2020, with 46.0% attending at least one telehealth visit. By 2023, non-Hispanic white children and those from higher-income areas were more likely to use telehealth, a reversal from earlier pandemic trends.
The authors note current disparities and call for more research on children’s and providers’ preferences, as well as telehealth’s impact on health outcomes after the pandemic.
