Number of Adults Who Have Ever Gone Online for Health Information Increases to an Estimated 136 Million Nationwide

According to a new ongoing poll from Harris Interactive, searching the Internet for health care information has become more widespread in the past year after three years of little growth.

Use of the Internet to search for health-related information by online U.S. adults has increased markedly both in terms of percentages (from 72% in 2005 to 80% now) and in numbers. This brings the number of all U.S. adults who have ever searched for health information online (Harris Interactive^® refers to them as "cyberchondriacs") to 136 million, a 16 percent increase from 117 million in 2005.

Read the Press Release from Harris Interactive here.  As indicated in the release, some of key findings from the survey include:

• The number of U.S. adults who have ever gone online to look for   health or medical information has increased to approximately 136 million up   from about 117 million last year. The main reason for this increase seems to   be that the total number of Internet users has increased somewhat (from 74% of   all U.S. adults in 2004 to 77% now) and the percent of those looking for   medical information is increasing as well. Cyberchondriacs now represent 80   percent of all online adults, up substantially from last year’s 72 percent.
• Six in 10 (61%) online adults say that they have looked for information   about health topics often (21%) or sometimes (40%), a slight increase of three   percentage points from 2005 (58%).
• The percentage of online adults who say they hardly ever or never search for   health information has dropped to 39 percent, down from 43 percent last year.
• Interestingly, while three-quarters (76%) of those who have ever searched   the Internet for health information have done so one or more times in the last   month, this is down from last year when 85 percent said that they had gone   online one or more times in the past month looking for health information.
• On average, a cyberchondriac searches the Internet five times per month, a   decrease from the almost seven times per month a year ago and similar to five   times per month in 2004.
• Similar to 2005 a large majority of cyberchondriacs (88%) continues to   indicate that they were successful in searching for health information online.   Forty-two percent say that they were very successful and another 46 percent   say they were somewhat successful.
• Eighty-seven percent cyberchondriacs say that the health information they   found online has been reliable (25% "very reliable" and 61%   "somewhat reliable"). Interestingly, this has declined from 2005   when 90 percent felt this way. Of special note, the percentage of those who   indicate that online medical information is "very reliable" has   declined substantially from 37 percent in 2005 to the current 25 percent.