Online Health Information Seeking Behavior, Healthcare Access, and Health Status During Exceptional Times

Cinzia Di Novi, Matija Kovacic (matija.kovacic@unive.it) and Cristina Elisa Orso (cristinaelisa.orso@uninsubria.it)
Additional contact information
Matija Kovacic: European Commission, Joint Research Centre (JRC), Department of Economics, Ca' Foscari University of Venice
Cristina Elisa Orso: Department of Law, Economics, and Cultures, University of Insubria

No 2023: 26, Working Papers from Department of Economics, University of Venice "Ca' Foscari"

Abstract: Online health information seeking behavior (e-HISB) is becoming increasingly common and the trend has accelerated as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic when individuals strongly relied upon the Internet to stay informed by becoming exposed to a wider array of health information. Despite e-HISB having become a global trend, very few empirical investigations have analyzed its potential impact on healthcare access and individuals' health status. In this paper, we try to fill this gap. We use data from the second SHARE Corona Survey and estimate a recursive model of e-HISB, healthcare access, and individuals' health status that accounts for individuals' unobserved heterogeneity. The most interesting result concerns the e-HISB indirect effect on individuals' poor health through healthcare access, that is positive. Arguably, patients use information from the Internet to cope with their perceived vulnerability to illness, but they lack the ability to understand the medical information: an incorrect self-diagnosis may increase the likelihood of doctor visits for them, which, in turn, also increases the likelihood of perceiving a poor health status.

Keywords: health information seeking behavior; healthcare access; health status (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I10 I12 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 28 pages
Date: 2023
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-hea and nep-ict
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Related works:
Journal Article: Online health information seeking behavior, healthcare access, and health status during exceptional times (2024)
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