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The Internet is promising to play a prominent role in health care in the future, but there is an imbalance in its use between the East and the West, between genders, the rich and poor, the educated and uneducated and the urban and rural. This paper looks at the use of the Internet from the perspective of these subgroups across the world, and outlines some of the problems facing disadvantaged groups in particular older people and their caregivers in China. Older people and their predominantly family caregivers have limited access to computers which is compounded by lack of access to good health care. However, it is suggested that this will become a growth area as older people and their caregivers may well bypass traditional care for tele-health care and Internet information-based systems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]