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The Pew Internet Project, which has been tracking web usage since 2000, reports health information as the third most-prevalent activity among US Internet users. Eight out of 10 users report going online for health information, even if only occasionally, Pew said in a report issued Feb. 1. "Health care information is there when they need it," said Pew's Susannah Fox. According to the report, the two most common activities were exchanging e-mail and using search engines. For health information, people most often look up diseases, treatments, and physicians.
"We were really struck by the depth of feeling that people expressed" about how online searching helped them with health care, said Fox. "In many ways, the Internet has become the de facto second opinion. People go online to prepare for a doctor's appointment - or recover from [it]."
However, the study found fewer than half of adults in the following groups use the Internet for health care information: African Americans, Latinos, people age 65 and older, disabled persons, and those living in households with an annual income below $30,000. But Pew noted some of those figures are in flux, since African Americans and Latinos are increasingly accessing information from smart phones and other mobile devices.
"Yahoo, for example, reports that 'pregnancy,' 'herpes' and 'STD' (sexually transmitted disease) are among the top five searches performed on the mobile version of their site," the study noted. "These topics do not appear at all among the top five health searches for the non-mobile versions of either Yahoo or Google."
The Friends of AIDS Foundation is dedicated to enhancing the quality of life for HIV positive individuals and empowering people to make healthy choices to prevent the spread of the HIV virus. To learn more about The Friends of AIDS Foundation, please visit: http://www.friendsofaids.org.
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