July 2005

Adults research health on Web to talk to doctors

About three out of four adults go online to seek health-related information, according to a poll from Harris Interactive.

Most adults who have ever looked for health information online have been generally successful in finding what they are looking for and believe the information to be at least somewhat reliable, say the polltakers. Furthermore, many of these people use this information in their discussions with their doctors or use the Internet to help augment the information that doctors provide them.

Cybercondriacs — the term coined to describe health-information seeking adults — look for health information to educate themselves as well as to be prepared to discuss the information with their doctors. And about half of them look up information after talking with their doctors.

The Harris Poll was conducted by telephone within the United States between June 7 and 12, 2005, among a nationwide cross section of 1,015 adults (aged 18 and over). Figures for age, sex, race, education, number of adults, number of voice/telephone lines in the household, region and size of place were weighted where necessary to align them with their actual proportions in the population.

The poll has an accuracy of 95 percent, plus or minus 3 percentage points.

Source: Harris Interactive Inc., www.harrisinteractive.com

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