Low-income Californians who use the Internet are just as likely as more well-to-do Internet users to go online in search of health care information and two-thirds of those poorer Internet users report they gain important benefits from their online searches, according to a survey by the Pew Internet & American Life Project and funded by the California HealthCare Foundation. Relatively poor Internet users in California are more wired and have more online experience than their peers in other parts of the nation. This finding suggests that as more low-income Americans go online and become comfortable with using the Internet they will enjoy the same benefits as more upscale Internet users who do searches online for important medical information.
The survey also found that Californians in all income brackets and of all ethnicities are in line with the rest of the country when it comes to most Internet health search habits. However, online Californians differ from other wired Americans in three areas of online health:
* 31% of online Californians have searched the Internet for information about health insurance, compared to 24% of the rest of the country’s Internet users.
* 33% of online Californians have searched for alternative treatments, compared to 27% of the rest of the country’s Internet users.
* 23% of online Californians have searched for experimental medical treatments, compared to 17% of the rest of the country’s Internet users.
posted by Marcus Zillman |
11:37 AM
