Consumers facing barriers to healthcare access may use online health information seeking and online communication with physicians, but the empirical relationship has not been sufficiently analyzed. Our study examines the association of barriers to healthcare access with consumers' health-related information searching on the internet, use of health chat groups, and email communication with physicians, using data from 27,210 adults from the 2009 National Health Interview Survey. Individuals with financial barriers to healthcare access, difficulty getting timely appointments with doctors, and conflicts in scheduling during clinic hours are more likely to search for general health information online than those without these access barriers. Those unable to get timely appointments with physicians are more likely to participate in health chat groups and email physicians. The internet may offer a low-cost source of health information and could help meet the heightened demand for health-related information among those facing access barriers to care.

Although staff and family proxy domain scores are significantly correlated with resident scores, the level of correlation suggests they cannot simply be substituted for resident reports of QOL. Determining how proxy reports can be used for residents who cannot be interviewed at all remains an unresolved challenge.

We examine the effects of diverse dimensions of hospital quality – including consumers’ perceptions of unobserved attributes – on future hospital choice. We utilize consumers’ stated preference weights to obtain hospital-specific estimates of perceptions about unmeasured attributes such as reputation. We report three findings. First, consumers’ perceptions of reputation and medical services contribute substantially to utility for a hospital choice. Second, consumers tend to select hospitals with high clinical quality scores even before the scores are publicized. However, the effect of clinical quality on hospital choice is relatively small. Third, satisfaction with a prior hospital admission has a large impact on future hospital choice. Our findings suggest that including measures of consumers’ experience in report cards may increase their responsiveness to publicized information, but other strategies are needed to overcome the large effects of consumers’ beliefs about other quality attributes.

There was large variation in the degree of quality improvement after HHC by quality indicators and by agency characteristics.

This study presents the correlates of initial exposure to cigarettes, variables associated with smoking prevalence and with continued smoking (or not) among adult Californians of Korean descent who have any initial exposure to cigarettes. Among those who have taken a puff, social contingencies contrast those who become current smokers from those who do not. Data were drawn from telephone interviews with adults (N = 2,830) developed from a random sampling of listed persons in California with Korean surnames during 2000-2001. Of the attempted interviews, 86% were completed; and 85% of the interviews were conducted in Korean. Nearly half of all respondents (49.0%) had been exposed to cigarettes, and 41.9% of these reported current smoking, according to Centers for Disease Control and Prevention criteria (currently smoke and have smoked 100 cigarettes during lifetime). Multivariate analysis suggests that social contingencies may influence both initial exposure to tobacco and continued smoking among Californians of Korean descent. Influences of acculturation on taking the first puff and on current smoking status diverged by gender. Social support increased the likelihood of the first puff among both genders, but the association was stronger among females than among males. Social reinforcers that lead to taking the first puff also discriminated between those who became current smokers and those who did not. Interventions should be directed at these variables among young Korean nonsmokers and new smokers.