Trust, Inequalities and Health Literacy: The Tangle Meeting with Dr Google

Abstract

The Internet and the social media are becoming important tools for medicine, engaging physicians, patients and their families. Communities on several diseases arise and many providers offer apps for many purposes. Off line social groups still exist, too. This new networked world creates new opportunities but it requires new skills. What challenges for health (digital) literacy? Social media mean a context of networks, not individuals, Then we need research and debate to better understand both the renewed forms on health disparities and the new entangled processes of influence, overcoming the traditional individualistic models of literacy measurement. Key words such as reciprocity, listening, mutual understanding challenging different social representations of health could replace the conventional transmitting model of medical health communication.