Frontiers in psychology
Individual digital literacy, area-level digital exclusion, and inequalities in exercise participation among middle-aged and older adults: evidence from China
By Hao X, Duan M, Zhu C and 1 others.
Abstract
Background
Although digital exclusion has been widely discussed in relation to healthcare access and digital service use, less is known about its implications for exercise participation among middle-aged and older adults. This study examined how individual digital literacy and area-level digital exclusion jointly shape exercise participation in China.
Methods
Data were drawn from three waves of the China Health and Retirement Longitudinal Study (CHARLS; 2013, 2015, and 2018) and linked to city-year indicators from the China Statistical Yearbook. The analytic sample included 13,085 person-wave observations from 9,201 unique respondents across 111 cities. Exercise participation was measured as a binary indicator of engagement in exercise-oriented physical activity. Individual digital literacy was assessed using a composite index of digital access, internet use, device resources, and digital behaviors. Area-level digital exclusion was measured using a reverse-coded city-year indicator of contextual digital exclusion. Mixed-effects logistic regression models were used to estimate the associations of individual digital literacy and area-level digital exclusion with exercise participation and to test their cross-level interaction.