Lorence Daniel, Park Heeyoung
Center for Technology Assessment, PO Box 1154, State College, PA 16801, USA.
Health Informatics J. 2008 Mar;14(1):29-38. doi: 10.1177/1460458207086332.
The Internet is an oft-cited learning resource, useful to consumers who seek to educate themselves on specific technical issues or knowledge-intensive topics. Availability of public-access Internet portals and decreasing costs of personal computers have created a consensus that unequal access to information, or a "Digital Divide", presents a like problem specific to information for uninsured or under-insured healthcare consumers. Access to information, however, is now an essential part of consumer-centric healthcare management. To date little research has been done to differentiate levels of health information access on the Web by different subgroups, linking online socioeconomic characteristics and health seeking behaviors. This analysis of a landmark Pew Foundation survey seeks to differentiate and delineate information access, or lack of desired access, across targeted, "digitally underserved" subgroups.
互联网是一个经常被引用的学习资源，对那些寻求自我教育特定技术问题或知识密集型主题的消费者很有用。公共访问互联网门户网站的可用性和个人电脑成本的降低已形成一种共识，即信息获取不平等，或“数字鸿沟”，是未参保或参保不足的医疗消费者在信息方面面临的类似问题。然而，信息获取现在是以消费者为中心的医疗管理的重要组成部分。迄今为止，很少有研究通过不同亚组来区分网络上健康信息获取的水平，将在线社会经济特征与健康寻求行为联系起来。这项对皮尤基金会一项具有里程碑意义的调查的分析旨在区分和描绘目标“数字服务不足”亚组的信息获取情况，或缺乏所需的信息获取情况。
