More than half of US adults use internet to look for health, medical information

More than half of adults used the internet to look for health or medical information during July to December 2022, with higher prevalence among women than men, according to an October data brief published by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention National Center for Health Statistics.

Xun Wang and Robin A. Cohen, Ph.D., from the National Center for Health Statistics in Hyattsville, Maryland, describe the percentage of adults who had internet access and used any of three components of health information technology: using the internet to look for health or medical information; communicating with a doctor (but not to receive direct care); and looking up medical test results in the past 12 months.

The researchers found that 58.5% of adults used the internet to look for health or medical information during July to December 2022, with a higher prevalence among women than men. Adults ages 30 to 44 years had the highest use of the internet to communicate with a doctor or doctor's office (47.7%), followed by a reduction with increasing age. Among those who used the internet to look up medical test results, Asian non-Hispanic and white non-Hispanic adults were more likely to do so than American Indian and Alaska Native non-Hispanic, Black non-Hispanic, and Hispanic adults.

"During July to December 2022, 58.5% of U.S. adults used the internet to look for health or medical information, 41.5% used it to communicate with a doctor or doctor's office, and 46.1% used it to look up medical test results," the authors write.