Consult 'Dr.' Web? Not Any More, Study says

Let’s admit it. It seemed too good to be true. Finding Web sites that told us all about our medical conditions so we could diagnose ourselves and not have to see a doctor, or when we did, have all the facts about our illness to second-guess the doctor.

But consumers seem to be losing their enthusiasm for seeking out health information, a new report suggests, in a story by Neil Versel at informationweek.com.

Versel reports that, according to research by the  Center for Studying Health System Change (HSC), a Washington-based, nonpartisan research organization, it all started off with a big bang.

The study showed that “half of all U.S. adults in 2010 looked for information about personal health issues from sources other than their doctor within the previous 12 months. . . down from 55.5 percent in 2007, but still higher than the 38.8 percent recorded in a 2001 survey,” writes Versel.

Along with that, the number of people consulting print media for health information also dropped sharply. Less than 20 percent said they consulted books, magazines, or newspapers to answer their health questions in 2010, down from nearly 33 percent in 2007, Versel reports. Even fewer consumers turned to friends and relatives or to TV and radio for health information.

In the latest poll, consulting the Internet grew a tiny bit, Versel says, adding that almost 33 percent of the people surveyed looked online for information about their health concerns, compared to a little over 31 percent three years earlier. The Internet saw its usage by people for health information nearly double from 2001 to 2007.

Interestingly, the number of adults who consulted the Internet for health information nearly doubled, from 31 percent to 60 percent, according to a 2009 story by Erin Thompson at USA Today. At that time, the Internet was in a tie for third place (with books and print materials) as the source adults most often turned to for health information, according to Thompson.

And a story by Emily Sohn at Discovery News last year found that people should be careful about the medical information they find on the Web – a lot of the time, companies are trying to sell something, and sometimes, the advice is just plain wrong.

So what’s behind all this? Some experts think it might have something to do with people not finding exactly what they wanted about their conditions.

Versel reports that HSC researcher Ha Tu told InformationWeek Healthcare "We didn't expect it to keep growing as fast as it did earlier in the decade.”

The extent of the slowdown, though, surprised everyone, especially with broadband Internet access becoming available to more people gaining access to broadband Internet, which makes it much easier to surf the Net.

Almost 67 percent of U.S. households had broadband Internet access at the end of the study period, up from 47 percent in 2007, HSC noted, referring to data from the Pew Internet & American Life Project, according to Versel. “So it would have made sense for more people to consult online sources of health information,” Versel writes.

But perhaps the reason people are leaving fact-finding sources in droves, Tu told InformationWeek Healthcare, is that the “information may be less trustworthy than it once was or perhaps harder to digest, since health and medical websites can be complex and difficult to understand,” Versel writes.