The Role of Health Literacy on Credibility Judgment of Online Health Misinformation

Abstract

The general quality of online health information is problematic. Especially in the Web 2.0 era, many kinds of health misinformation are spreading via online social media, and imposing various negative outcomes on consumers. Health literacy is a concept theoretically related to critical information judgment and may protect consumers from the hazard of misinformation. This study aims to bridge the research gap between health literacy and misinformation judgment. We employ a survey approach with stimuli and instruments adapted from prior studies. By ordered probit regression, we find that the increase of health literacy can significantly decrease consumer's credibility perception on health misinformation. Several implications are discussed based on the empirical results.