JupiterResearch Study: 71% Use the Internet to Search for Health Info, But Only 16% Find What they Need!

About 71 percent of online consumers use search engines to find health-related information, but only 16 percent find the information they are looking for, according to a new JupiterResearch report, "Health Search: Assessing Consumers' Demand for Health Vertical Search Engines."

It's great news that consumers now have the Internet as an important health resource.  But what is the problem here?  With so much great health information available online, why are people not able to find the information they actually need?

As we have been building out OrganizedWisdom, a new community that makes it easy for people to share health wisdom (launching for the public at the beginning of August), we have been focused on this issue as a critical component to our design.  After all, we all need more than information -- we need information that can actually help us better manage our health and wellness. We need to be able to make decisions and to take away actionable advice.

It is great progress that there are plenty of new health search engines being developed.  Google Health continues to make improvements for example and Healthline.com is making progress to help people search for information. But while health search is improving, part of the problem is after users search -- when consumers actually land on a health Web site and try to find the information they need. 

The first problem is that the top health Web sites duplicate the exact same professional content, almost word for word by licensing it from the same circle of information providers.  On one hand, these databases provide vast amounts of professionally reviewed health knowledge from experts.  This information is so important for consumers to educate themselves that we plan to offer much of the same on OrganizedWisdom. There is a big gap of quality content available from the millions of people who actually have experience with any given health issue.  Some sites like WebMD also have message boards, but these are often unorganized and cluttered making it difficult for users to quickly find information they need. No one is yet providing an organized way to learn from the wisdom of millions of people who have real life experience.  OrganizedWisdom believes by enhancing professional content with user generated advice, recommendations and wisdom, consumers will get a more complete picture on any health topic.

The second problem, is that when consumers get to any of the leading health Web sites, they are barraged with information, buttons, banners, options, features and so on.  There is simply too much information!  To much clutter.  To much going on.  Too many decisions to make...Our goal is to strip away the clutter and focus on making it easy for consumers to find the information useful to them.

The third problem making it difficult for users to find information they need is that much of the information consumers actually want has simply not been organized or collected in an easy to use format.  Consumers want practical advice, recommendations, wisdom from other people.  People need information they can actually use to make better health decisions.  The public needs more than encyclopedia-style definitions and background.  Many of professional medical articles out there today do not address these needs. The content is often too general to be of much use to people looking for specific information. We believe that by focusing on the Long Tail of health information, we can help more people get relevant information .

Our goal is to dramatically simplify how people find and share health information.  By collaborating with you, and millions of other people who have experience with thousands of health issues, we will be able to help each other make better help.  And hopefully lead more than 16% of the people to the health information they truly need.