Searching for Health Information Online, a Survey.

People interested in health information have been using the Internet to search ever since it became available to the general public.  Per the Pew Research Center (2005), at least 80% of Internet users had looked for health information online by the year 2002.  That number is nearly identical to a study conducted in 2018, where 79.12% of respondents said they had used the Internet to look for health information for themselves within the previous twelve months.  Additionally, 41.01% of respondents had used the Internet for healthcare decisions, and 39.37% said they had used it for discussions with healthcare providers (Taya & Chuang, 2025).  These facts lead to the questions: “How do people look for online health information?” “How do they evaluate the health information that they view online?” and finally, “how comfortable are they with AI applications providing health information?”

Methodology

The Survey Questions:

1.      How long have you been using the Internet?

2.      Have you ever used the Internet to search for health information?

3.      Which search engine(s) do you use for health information?

4.      What websites do you visit for health information?

5.      How do you determine if a website has trustworthy information?

6.      Would you trust health information from an AI application?

The cohort being surveyed consists of five professionals currently working in the field of Public Health, with varying numbers of years of experience.  The respondents’ age ranges from 43 to 52, with four females and one male.

Results

For the first question, three respondents stated that they had been using the Internet since the early 2000s, one respondent stated they had been using it since the mid-1990s, and one since the early 1990s.  All respondents had used the Internet to search for health information (100%).  All the respondents stated that Google was their preferred search engine; one also mentioned Yahoo as a secondary search engine.

Websites that were visited for health information:

1.      WebMD, 100%

2.      CDC, 40%

3.      Mayo Clinic, 40%

4.      Websites suggested by Google, 40%

5.      Random websites, 20%

For the fifth question, certain themes emerged: legitimacy and authoritativeness were the main themes given as responses by 80% of the respondents.  They mentioned that having a .gov or .org domain makes the website seems more trustworthy. Sixty percent of respondents said they would be more likely to trust a website if it was very well known and 60% also said they would trust a website recommended by a knowledgeable person, like a friend, family member, or health provider.  One respondent (20%) stated that they would “look for consensus” when evaluating a website’s trustworthiness.

The sixth question revealed two themes in the answers: not sure (60%), and definitely no (40%).  The respondents from the “not sure” group stated that they had noticed erroneous information in the past (20%), found it too novel/too new (20%), or were worried about identity theft/hacking (20%).  The respondents from the “definitely no” group stated that information can be fabricated and unreliable (20%) and that the info is not from a legitimate health professional (20%).

Conclusion

The limitations of this survey include the age range of those surveyed, and their type of work experience.  They are not representative of the general population.  The subjects are exposed to health information daily as part of their work duties.  One interesting theme for further research could be the use of AI apps for health information within different age groups, especially those in the 18-25 and 26-35 age ranges, to gauge the level of comfort with AI tools in those demographics.

References

Taya, D. A., & Chuang, Y.-C. (2025). Internet use for health information, health service utilization, and quality of care in the U.S. BMC Health Services Research, 25(1). https://doi.org/10.1186/s12913-025-12807-5

Pew Research Center (2005). Health Information Online. Pew Research Center: Internet, Science &                     Tech. https://www.pewresearch.org/internet/2005/05/17/health-information-online/