Whopping 80% Of All Web Users Seek Health Info Online

[trfogey]

Health matters. In fact, health is the third most popular topic sought out online. In a national survey, The Pew Internet Project and California HealthCare Foundation measured internet users' interest in health information online and found out some insightful results, including searches related to food safety, drug safety and pregnancy information. Symptoms and treatments continue to dominate internet users' health searches.

The most likely groups to look online for health information include adults between ages 18 and 49 who, in the past 12 months, have provided unpaid care to a parent, child, friend, or other loved one. However, fewer than half of African American and Latino adults in the U.S. look online for health information.

Pointing to the user, adults 65 and older also don't tend to look online for medical advice, nor do those adults with high school education only or less, or have a household income of $30,000 or less. Just 2% of American adults say they have a disability or illness that makes it harder or impossible for them to use the internet. Eight percent of people living with a disability say this is true.

Read the rest --> Whopping 80% Of All Web Users Seek Health Info Online

 

[TedH5]

and they all end up here? LOL

 

[Tokahfang]

Hey, not all!

There is such things as a healthy use of seach engines, like finding the "when you should go the emergency room vs making a doctor appointment" list for your symptoms.

Unfortunately, it does exascerbate people with health anxiety. :/

 

[Jellycat]

Interesting article tryfogey. I sometimes look into the 'do I have als' section of the site......I'm really glad the resource is there to help but sometimes I wonder why people would look to als as an answer to their symptoms.

When my mum was experiencing her first symptoms of ALS (speech slurring), after 4 doctors visits I too consulted the internet. Saw stuff about ALS and discounted it immediately. Could be I was in denial about the seriousness of it all, but I think basically my mindset was that a doctor would have to tell me that was it before I would believe in such a serious diagnosis. Now the diagnosis seems so obvious but back then I still held out hope that it was one of the other myriad stuff it could have been. Could be I was just naive!

Now I am really glad the internet is there as a tool to support our journey. I couldn't care for her without the help I get from the forum and from looking up health care info, when the doctors drop a word or phrase in without explaining it. But, it's a tool - all depends on how you use it!

 

[TedH5]

My latest edition of Consumer Reports came and there was a good article in it about choosing a Doctor etc. Anyway I saw a couple of interesting statistics from the article I wanted to share..."61% of the patients surveyed reported they had read about their condition on the Internet. However almost half of the Physicians surveyed said online research helps very little and only 8% of Dr's thought it was helpful to patients at all."

The best advice came when they said if you are going to use the internet to search do not just put your symptoms or disease in a search engine box go directly to a site that doesn't accept advertising or a gov't website such as the CDC or to reputable educational research and hospital sites such as the Mayo clinic or Cleveland clinic etc.

 

[trfogey]

The best advice came when they said if you are going to use the internet to search do not just put your symptoms or disease in a search engine box go directly to a site that doesn't accept advertising or a gov't website such as the CDC or to reputable educational research and hospital sites such as the Mayo clinic or Cleveland clinic etc.

You'll love this article, then, Ted.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/06/magazine/06FOB-Medium-t.html?_r=2&ref=magazine

 

[Alyoop]

Bet you didn't know that Doctors use Google after you leave their office occasionally........they do!
Aly

 

[lydia]

Health | Teens diagnose their own maladies, doctors say | Seattle Times Newspaper

In this day and age, to NOT use the internet as one source of information regarding any topic of interest doesn't make any sense. This is the information age.

 

[Northern Dancer]

Is it so surprising that 80% of all web users seek health info online?

Seriously, if you had a magic box that contained all the answers to all the questions in the universe - some right, some wrong - and you were anxious to get info, especially about your health, wouldn't opening that box be the most obvious thing to do? Unless you have free, immediate, medical expertise at your side night and day.

I wonder more about the 20% who don't search for answers. I suppose they just don't have any health issues or have other more pressing problems.

One statistic that does baffle me is that it seems that around 100% of those forum members who get irate with folks visiting the 'Do I have ALS?' section still feel compelled to return to that same section again and again and let themselves get enraged over something that they could easily avoid. Guess we are all human and at times do things that other humans just don't get. LOL

 

[LornaDoone]

.....One statistic that does baffle me is that it seems that around 100% of those forum members who get irate with folks visiting the 'Do I have ALS?' section still feel compelled to return to that same section again and again and let themselves get enraged over something that they could easily avoid. Guess we are all human and at times do things that other humans just don't get. LOL

This too I find quite interesting

 

[Twinsmom]

I think the forum members who continue to go there and may still get frustrated with some of the threads, continue to return to the "Do I Have ALS?" thread because they are hoping to be of service to someone genuinely seeking support.

 

[TedH5]

I think that there is absolutely nothing wrong with utilzing the internet to learn more about your health. That being said it can not replace a Dr. I am advocate for people coming here and asking questions, I do understand why people get frustrated when they choose to listen to the internet instead of their Dr. When I was going through my diagnosis I too would search my symptoms but I was doing it to learn more about what my Dr was telling me. Even when WebMD and other sites would list ALS as one of the numerous ailments I could have I always dismissed that. I only came here once my Neuro told me he was confident I had ALS but could not give me an official diagnosis here. I felt like when I first posted and since I did not have an official diagnosis yet why I had put on my profile I had ALS etc etc. So I always try and empathize with the people coming here to ask questions. I just think it is important that people understand while the internet has a lot of valuable info it also has a lot of bad info that you should not listen to. Any Dr will tell you that. Plus the internet can not diagnose you.

Bottom line there is a difference betweenpeople coming here looking for support and guidance which all of us should be happy to help and people coming here trying to get us to help them convince themselves they have ALS because their symptoms showed on the internet that they have ALS but their Dr said no way no how.