Digital Capital: A Lens for the Study of Digital Exclusion from Health Care Services

Digitalized services have the potential to provide access and care in a flexible way, that overcomes distances. While this for parts of the population is adequate, convenient and in some cases even empowering, at the same time there are other parts of the population who are struggling with this development and who are faced with exclusionary dimensions. In this paper I focus on the latter, and propose that digital capital, which can be described as a specific form of cultural capital with both tangible (hardware and devices) and intangible (knowledge on how to use it) aspects is a promising perspective for studying mechanisms of exclusion from (partly) digitalized services: For instance it allows the inclusion of relevant aspects of digital technology use, e.g. the role of practices, how digital capital can self-replicate and intangible aspects like a ”feel” for technology. Nordic countries represent exemplary contexts for studying the impact of this development as they provide comprehensive public health services that have been pushed to adopt and utilize digital tools and technology in the provision of care. In addition, the COVID-19 pandemic served as a catalyst for digitalization. I will use empirical material from different groups faced by digital exclusion (e.g. older people residing in rural areas) to illustrate the analytical potential of the digital capital perspective.