Social inequalities in health information seeking among young adults in Montreal

Abstract

SUMMARYOver their lifecourse, young adults develop different skills and preferences in relationship to the information sources they seek when having questions about health. Health information seeking behaviour (HISB) includes multiple, unequally accessed sources; yet most studies have focused on single sources and did not examine HISB's association with social inequalities. This study explores 'multiple-source' profiles and their association with socioeconomic characteristics. We analyzed cross-sectional data from the Interdisciplinary Study of Inequalities in Smoking involving 2,093 young adults recruited in

Health information-seeking behavior associated with linguistic group membership: latent class analysis of a population-based cross-sectional survey in Italy, August to September 2014

“…LCA has been found useful when considering multiple sources to study HISB, particularly when the capacity to seek multiple sources is unequal [ 45 ]. LCA findings provide implications for interventions with respect to subgroups to be prioritized and areas to be targeted in efforts to promote access to and acquisition of health information and services [ 46 ].…”

Correlates of health information seeking between adults diagnosed with and without cancer

“…For example, targeting lesser educated individuals is critical because they tend to be underserved and more difficult to reach; this effort would help decrease health disparities related to socioeconomic status. Ensuring the availability of accurate and reliable health information on the Internet [ 37 , 46 ], which was the preferred source of health information in non-cancer diagnosed patients in our study sample, may help ensure accessibility of information in a subgroup of individuals limited by socioeconomically related barriers to health care [ 72 ]. In addition, understanding preferred sources of health information is a vital component of patient-centered care.…”

Critical health literacy: reflection and action for health

“…their CHL), we call upon Pierre Bourdieu’s theory of practice ( Bourdieu, 1977a ; Bourdieu and Passeron, 1990 ) and his concepts of habitus and capital ( Abel and Frohlich, 2012 ). Bourdieu’s theory of practice has been successfully applied to study how health inequalities are reproduced ( Williams, 1995 ; Veenstra 2007 ; Schori et al 2014 ; Jeong and Veenstra, 2017 ), including social patterning of health lifestyles, beliefs and health behaviours ( Cockerham et al, 1997 ; De Clercq et al, 2017 ; Gagné et al, 2018 ; Kandt, 2018 ).…”