Gray N, Klein J, Cantrill J, Noyce P; Academy for Health Services Research and Health Policy. Meeting.
Abstr Acad Health Serv Res Health Policy Meet. 2002; 19: 21.
Division of Adolescent Medicine, University of Rochester, 601 Elmwood Avenue Box 690, Rochester, NY 14642; Tel: (585) 273-1679; Fax: (585) 242 9733; E-mail: Nicola_Gray@urmc.rochester.edu
RESEARCH OBJECTIVE: To use the Internet to find health information, adolescents need to know and spell words and phrases associated with health and disease. We explored adolescents' health literacy, and the effect of entering commonly mis-spelled terms into popular search engines upon the results retrieved for the user. STUDY DESIGN: Focus groups of adolescents were convened to explore their experience of Internet use. During the discussion, participants were asked to generate an anonymous paper-based list of words and/or short phrases that they associated with health and illness, and that they might enter into an Internet search engine such as Google (www.google.com) or AskJeeves (www.ask.com). Terms that were commonly included in these lists, and most commonly misspelled by the students, were entered into popular search engines. POPULATION STUDIED: Middle and high school students (11-18 years old) have been studied at seven school sites across England and Scotland in Great Britain, and will be studied within Monroe and Ontario Counties, New York, in the United States. The participants represent a diversity of age, gender, ethnicity and socioeconomic groupings. PRINCIPAL FINDINGS: British students' lists of words and phrases suggested awareness of a wide range of terms such as cancer, arthritis, gonorrhea, antibiotics and asthma, but differences were seen among groups with respect to ability to spell these different terms. Younger males generated lists with more spelling mistakes than did females and older students. During focus group discussions, participants expressed concerns about their inability to spell medical terms. They themselves perceived that this might limit their information-gathering success. Arthritis and Asthma were commonly mis-spelled, and when these mis-spellings were entered into search engines page retrieval was reduced and changed. Asthma, for example, was commonly mis-spelled as Astma; in one search engine this resulted in retrieval of Scandinavian foreign-language sites, for which the term was correctly spelled. Some search engines offered users the opportunity to change to alternative spellings, but with no explanation of their meaning. Comparisons will be made with data from the United States. CONCLUSIONS: The Internet is a text-driven information tool. Retrieval of useful information about health and medicines relies on individual ability to spell relevant terms. Adolescents are generally not exposed to written medical terms within everyday life, although they may hear them frequently from family, friends and the media. Differences between early adolescent men and women's ability to spell medical terms may reflect their relative consumption of media, such as magazines, that expose them to health information. IMPLICATIONS FOR POLICY, DELIVERY OR PRACTICE: School health educators, and providers of Internet health information for adolescents, should consider how to help them find correct medical terms in order to maximize their benefit from this medium. Examples of tools to facilitate this may include pictorial prompts and online dictionaries. Fear of a digital divide has resulted in measures ensuring physical access to computers and Internet connections; disparities in use will persist if policymakers do not also address teens' health literacy. PRIMARY FUNDING SOURCE: The Commonwealth Fund
Publication Types:
Keywords:
- Adolescent
- Communication
- Communications Media
- Educational Status
- England
- Ethnic Groups
- Female
- Focus Groups
- Great Britain
- Health
- Health Behavior
- Health Education
- Humans
- Internet
- Male
- New York
- Ontario
- Periodicals
- Scotland
- Students
- United States
- hsrmtgs
Other ID:
UI: 102273771
From Meeting Abstracts