Clinical- Special Populations- Eldery - Digital Divide

e-Health and the Elderly: How Seniors Use the Internet for Health - Survey- 1/26/2005

“A national Kaiser Family Foundation survey of older Americans found that as the Internet becomes an increasingly important resource for informing decisions about health and health care options, less than a third (31%) of seniors (age 65 and older) have ever gone online, but that more than two-thirds (70%) of the next generation of seniors (50-64 year-olds) have done so. The differences among seniors and 50-64 year-olds are striking and indicate that online resources for health information may soon play a much larger role among older Americans. Twenty-one percent of seniors have gone online to look for health information compared to 53% of 50-64 year-olds; 8% of seniors get "a lot" of health information online compared to 24% of 50-64 year-olds; the Internet is 5th on a list of media sources of health information for seniors compared to first among 50-64 year-olds; and 26% of seniors trust the Internet “a lot” or “some” to provide accurate health information, compared to 58% of 50-64 year-olds. The survey is a nationally representative, random digit dial telephone survey of 1,450 adults age 50 and older, including 583 respondents age 65 and older. The report was released at a briefing held in Washington, D.C. on Wednesday, January 12, 2005.” [From the Kaiser Family Foundation web site.]    For more information on this survey go to http://www.kff.org/entmedia/entmedia011205pkg.cfm.




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