The Relationship Between Health Information Seeking and Community Participation: The Roles of Health Information Orientation and Efficacy

Abstract

Health communication scholarship has built on the health-promoting role of the community in exploring participatory communication techniques in community-based health promotion efforts. Community participation inculcates responsibility, strengthens community bonds, and provides a platform for diffusing health interventions. This power of a community to embody responsible action and promote participation in preventive behavior is examined in recent research on social capital. Exploring the link between community participation and health, this article demonstrates, through 2 survey studies, that health information orientation and health information efficacy are positively correlated with community participation. Furthermore, community participation is linked with prevention orientation, health beliefs, and health behaviors. Based on the findings, theoretical and pragmatic suggestions are presented.

An Examination of the Relationship Between Health Information Use and Health Orientation in Korean Mothers: Focusing on the Type of Health Information

“…More important, previous studies related to the relationship between media use and health orientation all used U.S. data compiled in 1999 (Basu & Dutta, 2008;Dutta, 2007;Dutta-Bergman, 2004b. Internet use has been sharply increasing, and current use of the Internet for health information is not comparable to rates found more than 10 years ago.…”

“…Health information orientation refers to ''the extent to which the individual is willing to look for health information'' (Dutta-Bergman, 2004b, p. 275). Health information orientation is positively correlated with health beliefs and health activities (Basu & Dutta, 2008).…”

Public perceptions of the transmission of pandemic influenza A/H1N1 2009 from pigs and pork products in Australia

“…Gender differences have frequently been noted in health information-seeking behaviour; with women being more likely to seek information and having a more proactive attitude to health (Kassulke et al, 1993) and having higher levels of health information orientation and health information efficacy (Basu and Dutta, 2008;Taylor et al, 2009). Although we did not collect such data in this study, it is possible that differences in information seeking may explain this gender effect.…”

Integrating Client and Clinician Perspectives on Psychotropic Medication Decisions: Developing a Communication-Centered Epistemic Model of Shared Decision Making for Mental Health Contexts

“…The Theory of Motivated Information Management (TMIM) argues that individuals seek information not to manage uncertainty but to reduce anxiety (Afifi et al, 2006), leaving room for individuals to selectively seek out and avoid information. 7Several factors are proposed to be involved in this selection-avoidance process.TMIM highlights the role of an individual's "efficacy," described by Basu and Dutta (2008) as a "perceived ability to seek out health information" (p. 71) that requires both information availability and a perceived capacity to master the information. TMIM details different types of efficacy: communication efficacy or "individuals' perception that they can successfully enact a particular information-seeking strategy" (Afifi et al, 2006, p. 192); coping efficacy or individuals' confidence in the resources (e.g., network support) they have to manage expected outcomes; target efficacy which includes target ability or whether the information source -the clinician in this case -"has access to the sought-after information" and target honesty: whether the clinician is inclined "to provide all the information about the issue that is at his/her disposal" (Afifi et al, 2006, p. 192).…”