Displaced youth have high digital literacy, yet structural barriers still block them from actual sexual health care.


 A study challenges the assumption that "education is the barrier" to health access. conducting research among displaced youth in Uganda's informal urban settlements (slums), researchers found that participants actually had high levels of "digital health literacy." These young people knew how to find sexual health information online and were comfortable using digital tools. However, this literacy did not translate into service usage.

The study reveals that structural barriers—specifically the cost of data, lack of private spaces to browse, and fear of judgment from providers—were the real blockers. Even when youth found the right information online, they couldn't act on it because the physical health system remained inaccessible or stigmatizing. The findings suggest that digital health initiatives for refugees and displaced youth cannot exist in a vacuum; they must be paired with free Wi-Fi zones and "youth-friendly" physical clinics to bridge the gap between digital awareness and actual care.

Read the original article at: https://www.jmir.org/2025/1/e78343

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