Librarians' Rx posted a link to the new Pew Report on Health Information Online and I thought it forward it along.

"The report details the use of online health information in the U.S. One of the main findings is that 80% of internet users have looked online for health information. Reasons for online health information searching include speed of access and years of online experience. Searching in the areas of diet, fitness and drug information have increased since 2002." (Librarians' Rx)

The Pew Report indicates that approximately 95 million American adults use the internet for health research. (2002 figures)

This information is a great update to the information that I blogged about in November, Patients Finding Health Information. In one year alone, 1998, some 60 million adults were estimated by a Harris Poll (1999) to have searched the Internet for healthcare information. That is a 35 million people jump in 3 years!

I would love to see a report from Pew or somebody else detailing the consumers patterns and behaviors in evaluating health information on the internet. As we librarians know, there is really good stuff online, but there is some really bad stuff too. It would be interesting to know how these 95 million people sift the wheat from the chaff.