Online Health Information and Low-Literacy African Americans

Abstract

African Americans with low incomes and low literacy levels disproportionately suffer poor health outcomes from many preventable diseases. Low functional literacy and low health literacy impede millions of Americans from successfully accessing health information. These problems are compounded for African Americans by cultural insensitivity in health materials. The Internet could become a useful tool for providing accessible health information to low-literacy and low-income African Americans. Optimal health Web sites should include text written at low reading levels and appropriate cultural references. More research is needed to determine how African Americans with low literacy skills access, evaluate, prioritize, and value health information on the Internet.

The Intersection of Gender and Place in Online Health Activities

“…Eighty-seven million adults have a hard time understanding health information (Powell, 2009), especially those who are older, less affluent and from rural areas (Kreps, 2005;Oldfield & Dreher, 2010). Given that lower health literacy is associated with poorer health outcomes (Berkman et al, 2011), ensuring that individuals can find, understand, and apply health information will be important for decreasing health disparities as more information moves online (Birru & Steinman, 2004).…”

The effect of improved readability scores on consumers’ perceptions of the quality of health information on the internet

“…6 Disadvantaged populations, particularly those with low socio-economic status and lower levels of literacy, face greater challenges. [7][8][9][10][11] Information on the internet may be overwhelming to many users. [12][13] Some 90 million Americans are either illiterate or are functionally literate at best.…”

Addressing Online Information Needs in Palliative Care: An Action Research-Inspired Approach

“…This study suggests that a cyclic participatory, formative approach can be successfully employed to that end. Moreover, by drawing on UWGs, external experts, and a capable PRG most of the quality issues regarding online health information focused on in recent studies (Benigeri and Pluye 2003;Sullivan et al 2003;Birru and Steinman 2004;Felber 2004;Fikar and Keith 2004;Friedman et al 2004;Ilic et al 2004;Jorgensen and Gotzsche 2004;Molassiotis and Xu 2004;Morahan-Martin 2004;Nahm et al 2004;Weissenberger and Schultze-Seemann 2004;Zeng and Parmanto 2004;Boulos 2005;Changrani and Gany 2005;Ekman et al 2005;Simon and Hegedus 2005;Viswanath 2005) can be effectively addressed. Generating targeted user participation that represents all potential user groups ensures that the content of online health information resources corresponds to user needs, uses appropriate language, and is easily accessible.…”

“…Although the growing demand for appropriate consumer health information on the Internet has been the topic of much recent medical, social science and information science literature (Pereira et al 2001;Basch et al 2004;Bleakley et al 2004;Brotherton 2004;Dickerson et al 2004;Mick 2004;Ziebland et al 2004;Balmer 2005;Bright et al 2005;Doney et al 2005;Escoffery et al 2005;Rees 2005), there has been a noticeable absence of reports that describe how to adequately design such online resources. What is more, the outcomes of online health information ventures have been extremely uneven and a growing body of literature alerts to the questionable quality of content, language, site maintenance, and accessibility provided by health information sites (Sullivan et al 2003;Birru and Steinman 2004;Felber 2004;Fikar and Keith 2004;Friedman et al 2004;Ilic et al 2004;Jorgensen and Gotzsche 2004;Molassiotis and Xu 2004;Morahan-Martin 2004;Nahm et al 2004;Weissenberger and Schultze-Seemann 2004;Zeng and Parmanto 2004;Boulos 2005;Changrani and Gany 2005;Ekman et al 2005;Simon and Hegedus 2005;Viswanath 2005).…”