Education-Based Gaps in eHealth: A Weighted Logistic Regression Approach

Area of Science:

• Digital Health
• Health Disparities
• Health Informatics

Background:

• Individuals with college degrees are more prone to eHealth behaviors, exacerbating health disadvantages for undereducated populations in the US.
• The impact of eHealth experience quality on the education-based eHealth gap remains under-researched.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate how eHealth information search experience moderates the association between college education and eHealth behaviors.
• To determine if Internet health information search quality influences the disparity in eHealth engagement between college-educated and non-college-educated adults.

Main Methods:

• Analysis of a nationally representative sample of 1458 adults who recently searched for health information online.
• Utilized weighted logistic regression models to assess the probability of various eHealth behaviors.
• Evaluated eHealth search experience in relation to different eHealth behaviors and its moderating effect on the education gap.

Main Results:

• College education positively correlated with four eHealth behaviors.
• Generally, richer eHealth search experience was negatively linked to health care, information-seeking, and content-sharing behaviors.
• Internet health information search experience narrowed the education gap for doctor communication and online health management but widened it for personal/others' information searches and mobile downloads.

Conclusions:

• The moderating effect of Internet health information search experience on the college education-eHealth behavior relationship varies by behavior type.
• Individuals with more fruitful Internet health information searches were less likely to engage in certain eHealth behaviors, even after controlling for college education.