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Consumers’ Selection and Use of Sources for Health Information

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Social Web and Health Research

Abstract

Health information sources for consumers become increasingly diverse, ranging from traditional interpersonal and mass media sources to internet-based websites and a wide variety of user-generated social media-based sources. The quality of information in different sources varies widely and the overall quality is worrisome. As the first step in information seeking, selecting proper sources is critical for successful health information seeking and subsequently, health decision-making. Thus, it is important to understand how consumers select and use different sources to access health information. This chapter begins with an overview of various health information sources available for consumers and explanation of why we should study consumer source selection behavior. Then, popular theoretical perspectives to understand source selection are introduced, followed by a review of consumers’ source preferences, actual behavior of selecting and using a particular source or combinations of multiple sources, and source selection criteria. Finally, several future research directions are outlined.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Information, The University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX, USA

    Yan Zhang

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  1. Yan Zhang
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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Health Outcomes and Biomedical Informatics, College of Medicine, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL, USA

    Jiang Bian

  2. Department of Health Outcomes and Biomedical Informatics, College of Medicine, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL, USA

    Yi Guo

  3. School of Information, Florida State University, Tallahassee, FL, USA

    Zhe He

  4. Computer Science and Engineering Department, Texas A&M University, College Station, TX, USA

    Xia Hu

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Zhang, Y. (2019). Consumers’ Selection and Use of Sources for Health Information. In: Bian, J., Guo, Y., He, Z., Hu, X. (eds) Social Web and Health Research. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-14714-3_5

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