Proxies, ties and health information seeking realities: Survey results of an african‐American community

Abstract

AbstractThe purpose of this research poster is to present preliminary findings from a telephone survey. The goal of the survey was to explore consumer health information (CHI) seeking behavior using Mark Granovetter's (1973) strength of weak ties theory as the conceptual framework. Interviewers asked 216 respondents questions to determine where individuals go to seek CHI and to explore the “closeness” of tie relationships if the respondent sought CHI from an individual and/or if the information seeking was for someone else (proxy searching)(Fisher et al., 2005). Overall, 45.3 percent of respondents sought health information from a health service professional, 14.5 percent from a web site and 9.8 percent from another source. Respondents (n=125) who looked for health information in the past six months (42.4%) sought the information from a health service professional (weak tie) and most (52.8%) identified their relationship with this person as being “somewhat close” (significant tie). Respondents who looked for health information in the past six months were more likely to have sought the information for themselves (76.2%), although 22.2 percent sought health information on behalf of another person (proxy searching), such as a child, parent, another relative or non‐relative. Women slightly more often exhibit proxy searching behavior.