Public Opinion About Health Care - A Growing Number Look For Health Information Online

Although trust in hospitals and personal physicians remains high, and many people receive health education from physicians, nurses, and other health professionals, a growing number of Americans are seeking health information

TABLE 9.6

Adults who use the Internet to search for health care information, 1998–2004
	1998	1999	2001	2002	2003	Feb. 2004
	%	%	%	%	%	%
*Includes those online from home, office, school, library or other location
Note: 2004 figures calculated based on number of U.S. adults online (146 million) which is based on U.S. Census estimate of 218 million adults overall in the U.S.
SOURCE: "Table 1. Cyberchondriacs: Trends," in Health Care News: No Significant Change in the Number of 'Cyberchondriacs'—Those Who Go Online for Health Care Information, vol. 4, no. 7, Harris Interactive, April 12, 2004, http://www.harrisinteractive.com/news/newsletters/healthnews/HI_HealthCareNews2004Vol4_Iss07.pdf (accessed September 13, 2004). © 2004, Harris Interactive Inc. All rights reserved. Reproduced with permission in 2004.
Percent of all adults who are online*	38	46	63	66	67	69
Percent of all those online who have ever looked for health information online	71	74	75	80	78	74
Percent of all adults who have ever looked for health information online	27	34	47	53	52	51
Percent of all adults who have looked for health information online in last month	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	35
Numbers of adults who have ever looked for health information online	54 million	69 million	97 million	110 million	109 million	111 million

online. Harris Poll researchers have dubbed the more than 110 million adults who seek information about specific diseases or tips about how to maintain health on the Internet "cyberchondriacs."

When the nationwide survey was updated in February 2004, Harris Poll researchers found a relatively stable percentage of adults seeking health information online between 1998 and 2004 (Humphrey Taylor and Robert Leitman, "No Significant Change in the Number of Cyberchondriacs," Health Care News, Harris Interactive, vol. 4, issue 7, April 12, 2004). From mid-1998 to February 2004, the number of adults who had ever looked for health information online more than doubled from 54 million to 111 million. As of 2004, 69% of all adults who were online said they had sought health care information on the Internet. (See Table 9.6.)

The 2002 Harris Poll found that like the most frequent users of the Internet, cyberchondriacs tended to be young adults—82% of those between the ages of eighteen and twenty-nine had looked for health information online. Cyberchondriacs also were more likely to have had postgraduate education (84% of those adults looking for information online) and were more likely to be wealthier (77% of those reporting incomes in excess of $75,000 had looked for information online).

Table 9.7 shows that when cyberchondriacs go online in search of health information, they are more likely to use a portal or search engine (51%) to search multiple sites rather than look for information at a specific health Web site (23%). Despite the proliferation of sites devoted to health and medical care, the proportions of cyberchondriacs that visit them first when seeking health information has not changed from 2001 to 2004.