NDDIC News

73 Million Americans Seek Health Information on the Web

Information on Nutrition and Weight Control Among Hottest Topics

Reports issued by the Pew Internet & American Life Project in November 2000 and May 2002 track the habits of Internet users seeking health information and how they evaluate the quality of the content they find on the Web. The first report—The Online Health Care Revolution: How the Web Helps Americans Take Better Care of Themselves—revealed that 52 million American adults have sought health and medical information on the Internet. By the time of the second report—Vital Decisions: How Internet Users Decide What Information to Trust When They or Their Loved Ones Are Sick—that number had risen to 73 million. The reports use the term "health seeker" as shorthand for people who use the Internet to search for health information.

The reports, based on random surveys and focus group testing, reveal that on a typical day, about 6 million people, or 5 percent of those online, look for health information. New Internet users were less likely than experienced users to search the Web for health information. Only 2 percent of people who had less than 6 months of online experience said they had searched for health information on a given day, compared with 7 percent of people who had more than 3 years of experience.

Source: Pew Internet & American Life Project Health Callback Survey, June 19-August 6, 2001. Margin of error is ±4.

Hot Topics

According to the reports, health seekers go online to find answers to specific questions. The vast majority, 93 percent, sought information about a specific disease; almost two-thirds looked for information about nutrition, exercise, or weight control; and a similar number, 64 percent, wanted to find information about a prescription drug. Less than one-fifth of health seekers go online to try to diagnose their own condition.

Search Strategies

Nearly 90 percent of health seekers say they start their searches using a general search engine such as Yahoo! or Google rather than a specialty site such as MEDLINEplus or Healthfinder. Another large percentage, 86 percent, say they visit multiple sites rather than rely on one favorite site. Of the 14 percent who report having a favorite site for health information, nearly one-third give ease of navigation as the feature they appreciate most. One-quarter of those with a favorite site say they choose it because they trust the advice and information there. Only 14 percent of health seekers said they asked for advice about where to look for online health information.

Quality Checks

Several organizations have issued recommendations for checking the reliability of websites, including identifying the source of the information, checking the date the information was posted, and reading the site's privacy policy. About half of the survey respondents said they check the source and date of the information they find either "all of the time" or "most of the time." The other half said they check this information "only sometimes," "hardly ever," or "never."

"Their approach may not be as rigorous as the medical community would prescribe, but e-patients are finding what they need, when they need it," says Susannah Fox, director of research at the Pew Internet Project.

The most frequent reason health seekers give for turning away from a health website is advertising or commercialism, followed by lack of source information and date.

About two-thirds of health seekers say they find the same information on multiple sites, and 77 percent of those say that finding the same information on multiple sites gives them more confidence.

More than one-third of health seekers who have succeeded in finding information say they talk with their doctors about what they find. Most of the others say they do not talk with their doctors about the information because it usually involves a nonurgent issue, not because they fear the doctor will reject it or disapprove of how it was found.

A User's Guide

The Vital Decisions report includes an appendix provided by the Medical Library Association (MLA)—A User's Guide to Finding and Evaluating Health Information on the Web. The guide provides advice on using search engines, pointers on evaluating sponsorship and currency of websites, and additional resources. The MLA's recommendations include the following:

• Learn how to use the advanced features of general search engines to make your retrieval more precise.



• Become familiar with reliable general health information tools such as MEDLINEplus (www.MEDLINEplus.gov) and Healthfinder (www.healthfinder.gov) as starting points for your search.



• Pay attention to the web address to see whether it terminates in .gov, .edu, .org, or .com. Look for the sponsor of .org and .com sites to determine impartiality.



• Make sure each page of a website clearly indicates when it was last updated.



• Determine whether the information is intended for consumers or for professionals.

The Pew Internet & American Life Project, an initiative of the Pew Research Centers, conducts and funds research into the ways the Internet affects the lives of Americans. This nonprofit organization releases about 20 reports each year on issues such as Internet use in schools, shopping on the Internet, job-searching on the Internet, online crime, website privacy policies, and the demographics of people who log on.

The full reports are available on the organization's website at www.pewinternet.org. The MLA website is located at www.mlanet.org.

The Internet has proven to be ideal for disseminating health information for the National Digestive Diseases Information Clearinghouse. As part of the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases (NIDDK) of the National Institutes of Health, our .nih.gov domain is reassurance of science-based content without commercial bias. Our standard is to review every publication at least once every 18 to 24 months to ensure its continued accuracy. Expert reviewers and field-testers are acknowledged by name and the date of the last review is always posted. And unlike commercial sites, our site does not try to collect information about its users.

NIH Publication No. 03–4552
March 2003