Accepted for/Published in: Journal of Medical Internet Research
Date Submitted: Mar 22, 2019
Open Peer Review Period: Mar 26, 2019 - May 21, 2019
Date Accepted: Aug 11, 2020
(closed for review but you can still tweet)
The Role of Health Literacy in Health-Related Information Seeking Behavior Online: A Cross-Sectional Study
ABSTRACT
Background:
None.
Objective:
To investigate health-related information-seeking using the Internet and its relationship with health literacy, access to technology, and socio-demographic characteristics.
Methods:
Data come from 614 adults in Minnesota who answered a survey on health literacy, access to technology, and health-related information-seeking Internet use. We used a cross-sectional, multivariate regression design to assess the relationship between health-related information-seeking on the Internet and health literacy and access to technology, controlling for socio-demographic characteristics.
Results:
Better health literacy and greater access to technological devices were both associated with more health-related information-seeking behavior on the Internet, after adjusting for all other socio-demographic characteristics. Possession of a graduate degree, female gender, poor health, participation in social groups, and having an annual health exam were all associated with online health-related information-seeking as well.
Conclusions:
Higher health literacy and better access to technology are associated with more online health-related information-seeking. Online health-related information-seeking also varies by socio-demographic characteristics. Practice Implications: Access to online health-related information is not uniformly distributed throughout the population, which may exacerbate disparities in health and healthcare. Research, policy, and practice attention are needed to address disparities in access to health information, as well as to ensure the quality of that information.
Citation
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Copyright
© The authors. All rights reserved. This is a privileged document currently under peer-review/community review (or an accepted/rejected manuscript). Authors have provided JMIR Publications with an exclusive license to publish this preprint on it's website for review and ahead-of-print citation purposes only. While the final peer-reviewed paper may be licensed under a cc-by license on publication, at this stage authors and publisher expressively prohibit redistribution of this draft paper other than for review purposes.