Digitalization increases ecological footprint by 10% in higher-income economies.... Read more

Researchers found that stronger external communication also built leadership backing, which partly explained higher technology adoption in small producers

Cisco reported critical vulnerabilities in its Secure Email Gateway and Secure Firewall products. The company also announced a digitalization initiative for port infrastructure, noting that the average annual cost of downtime per organization is $300 million.

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Chris Michaels Interview

Artificial intelligence (AI), digitalization, and advanced automation are separate but closely connected technological fields. Together, they offer extrao...

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ZKONG and leading German home improvement retailer hagebau are transforming retail experiences through electronic shelf labels, ensuring operational efficiency.

Der bisherige Chef E-ID geht in Pension. Das Bundesamt für Justiz äussert sich zur Nachfolge und dem Stand der E-ID.

Background: To cope with the challenges of digital transformation in health and well-being, people need digital health literacy (DHL), namely the competencies to access, understand, appraise, and apply digital health–related information and services for their own and others’ health and well-being. So far, however, there have been no data on the level of DHL in Switzerland. Objective: As part of the international Health Literacy Survey 2019-2021 (HLS19), this study aimed to close this gap by investigating DHL, the population groups particularly affected by low DHL, its health-related consequences, as well as use of digital information sources in the general population in Switzerland. Methods: Participants were recruited from the Swiss Federal Statistical Office sampling frame using stratification by linguistic region, age, and gender. Of the 4764 individuals contacted, 2554 completed the survey (response rate: 53.6%). Responses from 52 participants were excluded because fewer than 80% of the general health literacy items had been completed. Additionally, 168 participants from the overall study sample were excluded from the calculation of the digital health literacy score (HL-DIGI) because of insufficient completion of the DHL items. DHL of 2334 people was assessed between March and April 2020 with an online questionnaire. Descriptive statistical analysis, Pearson chi-square tests, Spearman rank correlations, and multivariable linear regression analyses were performed to examine DHL and its associations with sociodemographic characteristics, health-related consequences, and use of digital information sources. Results: Most of the respondents report inadequate (1034/2334, 44.3%) or problematic (651/2334, 27.9%) DHL levels. DHL resulted to be negatively associated with older age (B=−0.278, 95% CI −0.371 to −0.185), greater financial deprivation (B=−0.101, 95% CI −0.148 to −0.054) and migration background (B=−5.992, 95% CI −8.990 to −2.994), and positively associated with education in the health sector (B=11.337, 95% CI 7.720 to 14.953) and social support (B=1.109, 95% CI 0.308 to 1.909). In addition, lower educational attainment was associated with lower DHL scores compared with having a master’s degree or higher. Higher DHL was associated with better self-assessed general health status (odds ratio [OR] 1.005, 95% CI 1.003-1.007), improved self-management (OR 0.989, 95% CI 0.984-0.993), and lower likelihood of experiencing restrictions of usual activities due to health problems (OR 1.004, 95% CI 1.001-1.007). Furthermore, people with higher DHL tend to rely more on face-to-face information from health care professionals and to use digital sources less frequently. Conclusions: This study offers first insights into the DHL of the population in Switzerland and indicates that almost three-quarters (72.2%) of the population have low DHL. These results are in line with those of other European countries and clearly show the urgency of measures to improve DHL, especially among vulnerable population groups.