Actively seeking health information
The quality of health information people are exposed to, whether actively sought or passively exposed to, can differ substantially. People need to be able to evaluate and assess health information to decide if the information is relevant to them and, if so, how to apply it.
However, before you can appraise health information you have to access and understand it. These processes can influence the quality of the health information you get. Many people today get their health information from the internet – both actively seeking health information and passively being exposed to health information.
We will focus on those people actively seeking health information. Nevertheless news reporting of health stories, for example, influences the public and if you are interested in this and its relevance to appraising health information see the article by Diviani (2019).
How you actively search for health information on the internet determines what you find. We will deal with this in the following steps.
References:
Diviani, N. (2019). On the Centrality of Information Appraisal in Health Literacy Research. HLRP: Health Literacy Research and Practice, 3(1), e21-e24.
Working with Patients with Limited Health Literacy
Working with Patients with Limited Health Literacy
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