Showing Digital Equity + Health Care + Sustainability.

How Digital Equity, Health Care and Sustainability Intersect

In Charlotte-Mecklenburg, a hot street and a slow internet connection can land on the same family. A resident who cannot get online may miss a telehealth visit or a Medicaid renewal. A neighborhood with little shade runs hotter in summer, which can make people sick. Care is harder to reach without a working device. Seeing these links helps us ask better questions.

Health Carebody and mindDigital Equityaccess to modern lifeSustainabilitystewarding natural resources
Digital Equity and Health Care: What telehealth and portals assume a patient has
Health Care and Sustainability: How heat and air quality reach the body
Digital Equity and Sustainability: Who gets the warning and who takes the heat
Where all three meet: where daily life compounds

Where all three meet: where daily life compounds

  1. Health Care and Digital Equity: What telehealth and portals assume a patient has
  2. Sustainability and Health Care: How heat and air quality reach the body
  3. Digital Equity and Sustainability: Who gets the warning and who takes the heat
01

Digital Equity + Health Care

What telehealth and portals assume a patient has

Booking visits, filling prescriptions and reading lab results now run through online portals. That takes a working device, a steady broadband connection and the skills to use both. According to fftc:FWD Folio data, 14% of Mecklenburg homes, about 1 in 7, had no internet access in 2023. The people who drop out of digital care are often the ones with the greatest health needs.

02

Sustainability + Health Care

How heat and air quality reach the body

Summer heat can cause heat-related illness and worsen heart and lung disease. Mecklenburg County Air Quality tracks ozone and fine-particle events that still occur during heat waves, so air quality matters on hot days. Charlotte's tree canopy was measured by TreesCharlotte in 2023. Shade matters because tree canopy is linked to less heat exposure and less strain on the lungs.

03

Digital Equity + Sustainability

Who gets the warning and who takes the heat

Air-quality alerts, heat warnings and storm notices now travel mostly online. A household without reliable broadband, or without the skills to use it, may not see them in time. Lower-income neighborhoods often face more heat and worse air, and they often have less internet access too. For those families, the risks stack up.

How a hot street becomes an emergency room visit

  1. 01

    Heat builds up

    Less shade, more pavement and summer heat raise health risks in certain neighborhoods, often lower-income ones.

  2. 02

    Care gets harder to reach

    Clinics move to portals and video visits, but families without broadband or digital skills hit a wall.

  3. 03

    Warnings miss some homes

    Heat and air-quality alerts go out online, so offline households miss them and face more harm.

  4. 04

    Emergency rooms take the strain

    Skipped checkups and unseen warnings leave people with no choice but emergency care.

Affordable internet in the hottest neighborhoods can help break this chain. So can online-tool help inside clinics, and alerts that reach people by phone, text or door.

By the numbers

  • 14%14% of homes in Mecklenburg County did not have internet access in 2023
  • 79.2 years79.2 years was the average life expectancy for Mecklenburg County residents in 2024
  • 48 Days48 Days The number of days Charlotte is projected to experience temperatures above 95°F by 2050 — more than double current levels
  • 8,6008,600 households connected to free home-internet services through the City of Charlotte’s “Access Charlotte” initiative

Folio links, articles, and reports

Sources & methodology15 referenced sources

Based on fftc:FWD Folio material for these topics and public data, with broader context on how the issues connect.

AI assists with organizing and explaining selected fftc:FWD source material. It does not replace review by FFTC staff or the judgment of residents and civic partners.