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Online sources for health information are becoming increasingly diverse, and these sources impact healthcare decision making. However, little is known about the factors influencing people's selection of online sources. Using the survey method, this study investigated how the individual characteristics of users influence their selection of five internet sources (search engines, social Q&A sites, online health communities (OHCs), social networking sites (SNSs), and crowdsourcing sites), for three distinct types of health search tasks (factual, exploratory, and personal experience). We found that individuals' source experience consistently predicted the selection of the four established sources (search engines, social Q&A sites, OHCs, and SNSs) for all types of tasks, whereas the selection of the comparatively new source, crowdsourcing sites, for all task types, was consistently predicted by race and preference for information. Health literacy was positively associated with the selection of search engines for all three types of search tasks, the selection of social Q&A sites for personal experience tasks, and the selection of OHCs for both exploratory and personal experience search tasks. Individuals with better health status were more likely to use SNSs for factual tasks. We also found some influence of personality. The findings suggest a need for interventions to reduce the divides in information access among user groups and for the development of technological innovations to tailor information delivery based on individual differences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The quality of online health information for consumers has been a critical issue that concerns all stakeholders in healthcare. To gain an understanding of how quality is evaluated, this systematic review examined 165 articles in which researchers evaluated the quality of consumer-oriented health information on the web against predefined criteria. It was found that studies typically evaluated quality in relation to the substance and formality of content, as well as to the design of technological platforms. Attention to design, particularly interactivity, privacy, and social and cultural appropriateness is on the rise, which suggests the permeation of a user-centered perspective into the evaluation of health information systems, and a growing recognition of the need to study these systems from a social-technical perspective. Researchers used many preexisting instruments to facilitate evaluation of the formality of content; however, only a few were used in multiple studies, and their validity was questioned. The quality of content (i.e., accuracy and completeness) was always evaluated using proprietary instruments constructed based on medical guidelines or textbooks. The evaluation results revealed that the quality of health information varied across medical domains and across websites, and that the overall quality remained problematic. Future research is needed to examine the quality of user-generated content and to explore opportunities offered by emerging new media that can facilitate the consumer evaluation of health information. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]