Digital access is increasingly part of how people learn, work, access health care, participate in civic life, start businesses, and use essential services. But access is more than having an internet connection. Meaningful digital inclusion depends on reliable and affordable broadband, appropriate devices, digital skills, technical support, and accessible online services.
This review examines research on how investments in these areas can produce measurable benefits across six sectors: education, health and telehealth, economic development and entrepreneurship, employment and workforce development, civic participation, and essential services and public benefits.
The evidence includes studies of broadband expansion, affordability programs, devices, digital skills, and online services. Together, these studies show that digital inclusion can do more than close an access gap. It can expand opportunities and reduce costs for individuals, organizations, and communities.
Education
Digital access can support education by giving students reliable access to assignments, instructional materials, teachers, college information, and other educational resources. Research suggests that both broadband adoption and connection quality can contribute to better educational outcomes.
Caldarulo, Mossberger, and Howell (2023) examined broadband adoption and academic achievement across U.S. counties. They found that higher community broadband adoption was associated with higher standardized test scores in both mathematics and reading. The gains were particularly strong for Black, Latino, and lower-income students. The study focused on actual broadband subscriptions rather than simply whether service was technically available, making it especially relevant to digital inclusion efforts.
Research from Michigan State University’s Quello Center similarly found connections between home internet access, digital skills, homework completion, and academic outcomes among rural and small-town students. Students with home broadband had greater opportunities to complete homework and develop digital skills. The researchers also found that students with stronger digital skills performed better on standardized tests and were more likely to express plans for college.
The Quello Center analysis found that students with fast home internet had an average GPA of about 3.18, compared with 2.81 among students without home internet and 2.75 among students relying on a cell phone alone. These figures are descriptive rather than proof that broadband alone caused the GPA differences, but they illustrate the educational advantages associated with meaningful home connectivity.
More recent research has examined broadband speed. Sanchis-Guarner, Montalbán, and Weinhardt (2025) found that faster home broadband had positive effects on measures of student human capital. The effects were linked to more education-oriented internet use and were strongest when students also attended schools with faster broadband, suggesting that home and school technology can reinforce one another.
Together, these studies suggest that educational digital equity is about more than getting a connection into a home. Students need a reliable connection, an appropriate device, and the skills to use technology effectively. For Pennsylvania schools and communities, investments in these areas can help students participate more fully in an education system that increasingly depends on digital tools.
Health Care and Telehealth
Digital inclusion can expand access to health care by allowing patients to connect with providers remotely, access specialists without traveling long distances, and participate in remote monitoring. Broadband provides the infrastructure, while devices and digital skills make these services usable.
Pandit et al. (2023) examined broadband capacity and telehealth use among Medicare beneficiaries during the COVID-19 pandemic. Counties with higher broadband capacity had substantially greater telehealth use, demonstrating a connection between broadband infrastructure and the ability of health systems to deliver care remotely.
Pennsylvania provides a particularly useful example through Geisinger’s predominantly rural service area. Researchers examined approximately 850,000 telemedicine visits across 45 Pennsylvania counties. For neurosurgery and gastroenterology visits, telemedicine saved patients an average of 32.4 miles of travel each way, preventing an estimated 174,736 round-trip miles of travel each month.
Telemedicine can also reduce costs. A Penn Medicine study found that visits through its Penn Medicine OnDemand program averaged $380, compared with $493 for comparable in-person visits—a 23% difference. The program generated hundreds of thousands of dollars in savings for the health system.
Devices can be an equally important part of digital health access. Gujral et al. (2022) studied rural veterans who received video-enabled tablets from the Veterans Health Administration. Veterans who received tablets used more video-based mental health services and experienced lower rates of emergency department visits and suicide-related emergency department visits.
Ochsner Health provides another example through its digitally enabled maternity programs. Ochsner reports that its Connected MOM program increased postpartum blood-pressure monitoring, while its TeleStork program was associated with a 27% reduction in unexpected neonatal intensive-care admissions for term infants and an 8% reduction in cesarean deliveries.
These studies demonstrate several potential benefits of digital health investment: less travel, lower costs, greater access to specialists, increased use of health services, and improved monitoring. For Pennsylvania, particularly its rural communities, broadband and digital devices can help make health care more accessible without requiring every patient to travel to a physical facility.
Economic Development and Entrepreneurship
Broadband can function as economic infrastructure by helping businesses reach customers, supporting entrepreneurship, improving agricultural productivity, and connecting communities to larger markets. Research has found positive relationships between broadband investment and several measures of economic activity.
Deller, Whitacre, and Conroy (2022) examined rural business startup rates and broadband speeds and found that broadband coverage and faster speeds were associated with higher rates of business formation. Conroy and Low (2022) similarly found that broadband access was associated with increased establishment births in rural America, including among small businesses and women-led businesses.
Research on actual broadband investment provides additional evidence. Nazareno, Jose, and Hart (2025) evaluated the federal Connect America Fund Phase II program and found that broadband deployment increased employment and household income in treated rural areas, with effects becoming stronger over time.
Agriculture provides another example. Bai, Wang, and Jayakar (2022) examined the $2.5 billion Broadband Initiatives Program and found that funded counties experienced greater growth in farm sales per farm employee during the period studied. Qu et al. (2025) also found that faster broadband was associated with higher farmland sale prices and cash rents.
Broadband can become an economic asset for households as well. Molnar, Savage, and Sicker (2019) found that single-family homes in neighborhoods with 25 Mbps broadband were valued approximately $5,977, or 3%, higher than comparable homes in neighborhoods with 1 Mbps service. The estimated premium in rural areas was about $5,099.
The Center on Rural Innovation has reported even larger differences between highly connected and less-connected rural counties, including higher business growth, self-employment growth, GDP growth, and per-capita income in counties with high broadband adoption. These figures represent differences between communities rather than a direct calculation of broadband’s causal return, but they illustrate the scale of economic differences associated with digital adoption.
For Pennsylvania’s rural communities, these findings are particularly relevant. Broadband can help farmers use digital technologies, allow small businesses to reach customers outside their communities, and give entrepreneurs access to markets and resources that may otherwise be geographically out of reach.
Employment and Workforce Development
Digital access has become increasingly important to finding and maintaining employment. Job searches, applications, interviews, workplace communication, training, and many daily job functions now depend on digital technology.
Zuo (2021) provides some of the strongest evidence that affordability can affect employment. The study examined a discounted broadband program for low-income households and found that local availability of the program increased employment and earnings among eligible individuals. The effects were driven by increased labor-force participation and lower unemployment. Internet use also increased when the program became available.
Atasoy (2013) examined broadband expansion across U.S. counties and found that gaining broadband access was associated with an approximately 1.8-percentage-point increase in the employment rate, with larger effects in rural and isolated communities.
Nazareno, Jose, and Hart (2025) found similar positive employment effects when evaluating the federal Connect America Fund’s rural broadband deployment. Their findings also showed increases in household income over time.
Digital skills are another important part of workforce participation. The OECD (2015) found that adults with stronger digital problem-solving skills were more likely to participate in the labor force. Workers with ICT experience also had stronger employment and wage outcomes than those without it.
These findings are particularly relevant as employers increasingly use digital systems for recruitment and workplace communication. A resident may need broadband to search for a job, a computer to complete an application, digital skills to navigate an employer’s system, and a reliable connection to participate in a remote interview or training program.
For Pennsylvania, this is especially important in rural areas where residents may have fewer employers within a reasonable commuting distance. Digital access can expand the geographic range of jobs that people can search for and, in some occupations, make remote work possible.
The research does not suggest that broadband automatically creates jobs. Local labor demand, education, transportation, and industry remain important. It does show, however, that digital access can remove barriers to labor-force participation and help people connect with employment opportunities.
Civic Participation
Internet access can expand people’s ability to participate in civic life by making information, community organizations, public institutions, and civic activities easier to reach. The evidence does not suggest that digital access produces a particular political viewpoint. Instead, it shows that providing connectivity can increase people’s opportunities to participate.
Frey, Baldassarri, and Billari (2024) provide particularly direct evidence. Their study examined people who previously lacked internet access and were subsequently provided with free laptops and internet service. Gaining access increased civic participation and voter turnout among relatively disadvantaged late adopters. The researchers did not find an effect on political activism, showing that the benefits were specific to some forms of participation rather than all political activity.
Whitacre (2017) examined U.S. data on broadband access and civic engagement and found that fixed broadband was associated with greater participation in local civic activities. Mobile connectivity was also important for some populations, demonstrating that different forms of digital access can provide different opportunities for engagement.
Poy and Schüller (2020) studied a rural broadband infrastructure policy in Italy and found that broadband expansion increased electoral participation. Their findings suggest that increased internet use was one pathway through which improved connectivity affected participation.
Falck, Gold, and Heblich (2014) similarly found that internet availability affected voting behavior in Germany, particularly among people who were less likely to participate through traditional channels.
For Pennsylvania, these findings are relevant as more civic information and activities move online. Government information, public meetings, community events, organizational communications, and opportunities to engage with public institutions are increasingly accessible through digital platforms.
Digital inclusion does not tell people what to believe or how to participate. It can, however, reduce technology-related barriers to participation. Providing affordable broadband, appropriate devices, and digital skills can give more residents the practical ability to find information, communicate with organizations, and participate in civic life.
Essential Services and Public Benefits
As government and community services move online, digital access increasingly affects whether residents can find information, apply for benefits, manage cases, and use programs.
Zuo and Powell (2023) examined the effect of affordable broadband on participation in Social Security Disability Insurance and Supplemental Security Income. They found that participation increased when subsidized broadband became available, particularly in areas with fewer physical Social Security offices. The findings suggest that broadband can make online government processes more accessible to people who may otherwise face substantial barriers to reaching an office.
Yoon, Zhang, and Li (2026) provide another example through the SNAP Online Purchasing Pilot. They found that allowing SNAP participants to redeem benefits online increased SNAP participation per capita by 13.7%, or 1.6 percentage points. Participation among people below the poverty line also increased. The effects were larger in states with greater computer ownership and internet access, showing that online services work best when residents have the technology needed to use them.
Digital access can also reduce geographic barriers. Residents who live far from government offices, grocery stores, or service providers may be able to complete some tasks online rather than traveling long distances. This can be especially valuable for people with disabilities, older adults, people without reliable transportation, and residents in rural communities.
However, putting a service online does not automatically make it accessible. Residents may need an appropriate device, an affordable connection, digital skills, language assistance, accessible website design, and help navigating the process.
This is where community organizations and digital navigators can play an important role. They can help residents understand eligibility, create accounts, complete applications, troubleshoot technology, and connect with additional resources.
For Pennsylvania, this is increasingly important as public and community services become digital-first. Digital equity investments can help ensure that online systems expand access rather than creating new barriers for residents who have difficulty using them.
The evidence therefore supports viewing broadband, devices, digital skills, and digital navigation as complementary investments. Together, they can help make essential services more reachable and usable.
The Value of Digital Inclusion
The research shows that digital inclusion can generate benefits well beyond internet access itself. Across education, health care, civic participation, economic development, employment, and essential services, studies have found connections between digital access and outcomes such as higher academic achievement, greater use of telehealth, increased civic participation, business growth, higher employment and earnings, and greater access to public benefits.
The return on digital investment is not the same in every community or program. Outcomes depend on factors such as affordability, connection quality, device access, digital skills, technical support, and whether online services are designed to be accessible and useful. Digital investments also create benefits that are difficult to capture in a single dollar amount, including time saved, travel avoided, greater independence, and expanded opportunities.
Taken together, the evidence demonstrates that digital access can be an important foundation for economic opportunity, educational opportunity, health care, civic participation, employment, and access to essential services. For communities considering digital equity investments, the research suggests that the greatest value comes from treating connectivity as part of a broader system of support—not as an end in itself.