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.
Highlights
A key component of high-quality healthcare is patient-centered care (PCC) in which patients and their providers work together to make decisions about health care and diseasePLOS ONE | DOI:10.1371/journal.pone.0148751 February 16, 2016Health Information Seeking Behavior and Adult Education Status management [1]
There are a number of individual factors and societal factors that can affect health literacy, adults with low literacy and low education status are less likely to have the basic literacy skills that correspond to adequate health literacy, and are more likely to have low PCC and poor health outcomes in both primary prevention and chronic disease [3,4,5,6]
Our study explored health information seeking behavior (HISB) and its relationship to health status and use of preventive measures, for those with and without a high school diploma while controlling for demographic factors
Summary
A key component of high-quality healthcare is patient-centered care (PCC) in which patients and their providers work together to make decisions about health care and diseasePLOS ONE | DOI:10.1371/journal.pone.0148751 February 16, 2016Health Information Seeking Behavior and Adult Education Status management [1]. There are a number of individual factors (age, socioeconomic status, race) and societal factors (health disparities, community norms, culture) that can affect health literacy, adults with low literacy and low education status are less likely to have the basic literacy skills that correspond to adequate health literacy, and are more likely to have low PCC and poor health outcomes in both primary prevention and chronic disease [3,4,5,6]. Education levels are often used as a proxy for literacy skills, over 80% of adults with low-level literacy, numeracy, and problem solving skills do have a high school diploma (OECD). People who do have a high school diploma, regardless of their literacy levels and other socio-demographic factors, are more likely to seek and use health information. Education levels and literacy levels are both strongly linked to health outcomes [10,11]
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