Examining Associations between Health Information Seeking Behavior and Adult Education Status in the U.S.: An Analysis of the 2012 PIAAC Data

Iris Feinberg, Jan Frijters, Vicki Johnson-Lawrence, Daphne Greenberg, Elena Nightingale and Chelsea Moodie

PLOS ONE, 2016, vol. 11, issue 2, 1-20

Abstract: This paper presents data from the Program for the International Assessment of Adult Competencies with a focus on the interrelationships among health information seeking behavior (HISB), and health status or use of preventive health measures for U.S. adults both with and without a high school diploma. Key results of ordinal and binary logistic regression analyses indicated that, after controlling for demographic factors, (1) adults with a high school diploma use more text-based health information sources while adults without a high school diploma use more oral sources, (2) using the Internet as a source of health information is more strongly related to reporting excellent/very good health status than having a high school diploma, (3) those without a high school diploma who use the Internet report the largest increase in health status over any other health information source, and (4) for those with learning disability or vision problem, a high facility in reading English is an important predictor of whether the Internet is used as a health information source. The Internet appears to play a key role in both enhancing health status and enabling use of preventive measures for those with and without a high school diploma; although, individuals without a high school diploma who use the Internet for health information derive substantial benefit in health status.

Date: 2016
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:plo:pone00:0148751

DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0148751

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