Access To Health Information Under Ubiquitous Networks

Background:Problems like human aging, disease spectrum shifts towards chronic non-infective diseases, sub-health problem and nutrition-related health problems seriously affect the development of our society. Being vast with land and population, China is now at a situation of being relative shortage of medical resources. Medical costs is continuously spiraling.in the discontinuous medical model, it is difficult to solve health problems only by medical institutions. Along with the improvement of people’s education level and cultural literacy in Chinese society, people’s health literacy improved as well, which provided the basis for the health information seeking. With the development of information technology, various information carriers filled people’s lives, such as computer networks, mobile internet, televis ion, radio, newspapers and books, relatives and friends and other ways. People are free to choose a variety of ways which are most acceptable to get health information.Objective: To learn about the frontier research about health information seeking behavior and to get to know people’s choice of way to obtain health information,and the various factors which affecting people’s choice about where to get health information, so as to clearly know the way to obtain health information of people with different characters. So that the relevant departments can carry out targeted action on health information promotion.Methods: Literature survey and questionnaire survey method were used in this paper. Retrieved literature used search theme of access to health information.Exported the bibliographic information, citespace software were used for bibliographic information analys is. On the basis of literature research, questionnaire were designed and consulted with some experts, finalized the contents of the survey questionnaire. Electronic questionnaires and paper questionnaires were both used in investigation, epidata3.1 was used for data entering and SAS8.0 software was used for analyzing the data.Results: Researches on health information seeking behavior were increasing year by year. Researches on health information seeking behavior have changed from dissemination of nutritional information,control of infectious disease and general health information to internet health information, electronic health records and secure access to health information. Studies on health information seeking behavior were mainly classified into three categories : Health information seeking, quality assessment of health information and factors that influence the acquisition of health information and its effects. Related research were mainly focused on motivation and purpose, access, quality, effectiveness, influences factors and users of health information seeking behavior. Terms of frontier research on health Information seeking behavior had changed over time. In the earlier time, the frontier research terms were getting health information from doctors 、enhanc ing medical services, then the acquis ition of health information from mass media and new media,then seeking health information on internet,then obtaining health information from mobile medical APPs.This survey received 680 valid questionnaires, male accounting for 46.76%, aged in 40 and below accounted for 66.76%, college degree or above accounted for 59.41%, monthly income between 2000-3999 yuan accounts for 46.79%, 26.91% had no medical education experience. User’s choice of access to health information were computer networks(66.91%), mobile networks(36.32%), TV(64.41%), radio(11.18%), newspapers and magazines(51.03%), relatives and friends(58.38%), other( 7.21%). 48.97% preferred computer Internet. User’s choice of internet ways to get health information were search engines(54.12%), professional databases(2.94%), social communication platform(17.25%), public portals(12.94%), professional health sites(6.32%), others(6.32%).Analysis of factors influenc ing health information seeking shows that women were more likely to get health information through newspapers, magazines and other printed matter than men.The older have the smaller probability of acquiring health information over computer networks and mobile networks, have greater probability of obtaining health information through television, radio, newspapers, magazines and other printed materials, relatives and friends. Compared with singles, married people were less likely acquire health information over computer network, televis ion, radio, newspapers, magazines, more through mobile network.The higher the education level, the greater probability of obtaining health information through computer and mobile network,the smaller probability via television, relatives and friends.Students were more likely to obtain health information through mobile network. Peasantry were less likely to acquire health information over newspapers and magazines. People whose monthly salary were more than 6000 yuan,were more likely to obtain health information through mobile networks. People who had medical education background, were more likely to access health information through newspapers, magazines, less likely to access health information through friends and relatives.Conclusion:With the development of information technology, health information seeking behavior has changed a lot. Internet technologies and information technologies had widely applied in the field of health care, particularly used in the disseminating of health information. The survey of access to health information also showed that the internet has become a main way for people to obtain health information, use of mobile phone to get health information were rais ing fastly. Traditional ways,such as televis ion, newspapers, magazines, friends and relatives are still on a important position..The relevant departments should disseminate health information according to the different characteristics of population,so as to achieve better results.