Professional Experience Placement

This recently published  article on the influence of ehealth literacy on perceived trust by Paige and colleagues (2017) examined the relationship between diverse socioeconomic groups. The authors undertook this study because there was limited understanding of the relationship between perceived trust in online health information and health and ehealth literacy. The convenience and efficiency of the Internet has enabled access to quick answers and feedback about common health problems and remedies as well as provide emotional support to cope with medical challenges. The authors segmented participants by socio demographic factors as little is known about how low- and high- ehealth literate adults perceive trustworthiness of health information from online health communication channels and information sources.

The author describe the study design, sampling procedures, measures and analysis undertaken. Findings indicated ehealth literacy did not differ by gender nor predict perceived trust of online health information. Females with lower ehealth literacy levels did report higher levels of trust than males. However, the opposite was found with higher ehealth literacy levels. In this study age did not predict perceived trust in online health information. Lower levels of  health literacy found older adults had a higher perceived trust than younger people. Conversely older people with high ehealth literacy were less trusting of online sources of information than younger adults with high levels of health literacy. This study found that race did not did not moderate the relationship between ehealth literacy and perceived trust of online health information. Different health sources also played a role on the perception of trust. Facebook was perceived as more trustworthy by older adults with low level o health literacy. However this group did not trust online support groups. Minority groups indicated YouTube was a trustworthy channel for obtaining health information.  Additionally, Twitter was perceived to be trustworthy by minority groups for obtaining health information. The authors commented that ehealth literacy can significantly influence diverse audiences’ trust of specific information channels for online communication. Socio demographic factors  are needed to be taken into account when considering providing health information to groups as channels used will differ depending on the information being disseminated as will the format of the information. Segmentation of audiences according to their health literacy levels is important is will change which channels are used depending on the group being targeted .

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