Rural Alabamians' Unmet Medical Needs: Rethinking the Roles of Online Health Information-Seeking Behaviors

Area of Science:

• Digital Health
• Health Disparities
• Rural Health

Background:

• Unmet medical needs are a significant issue in rural U.S. areas.
• Internet access is crucial for health information, but rural minority communities are often underrepresented in digital health studies.
• This study focuses on African/Black American adults in a rural region.

Purpose of the Study:

• To examine the association between online health information-seeking behaviors and unmet medical needs.
• To understand the digital health landscape in underserved rural populations.

Main Methods:

• Descriptive analyses of unmet medical needs and online health information-seeking behaviors.
• Logistic regression to test the association between these behaviors and unmet medical needs.
• Study sample comprised 191 rural African/Black American adults.

Main Results:

• Approximately 20% of participants reported unmet medical needs.
• Higher engagement in online health information seeking was associated with a 5.95 increased odds of experiencing unmet medical needs (OR = 5.95, 95% CI 1.27-27.77).
• The majority of participants were older adults, female, unemployed, and had low annual incomes.

Conclusions:

• Findings underscore the need for targeted programs to address high unmet medical needs by improving access to health information and resources.
• Further research is required to explore motivations behind online health information seeking to inform interventions.
• Structural and workforce interventions are necessary to tackle unmet medical needs in under-resourced rural areas.