Knowledge, attitude and practice of using information technology to seek health care information: Results from a telephone survey in the Central Valley, California

This study assesses the knowledge, attitude and practice of the residents of the Central Valley, California towards their use of internet and other communication mediums in seeking medical and health information data. Such information varies from disease management to receiving reminders for taking pills, accessing prescription and drug information. A majority of the people in this region have limited access to care because of economic hardship and/or remote location of their workplace in the farmlands. Knowing whether they have access to the internet, land or cellular phones and whether they are willing to use these mediums as vehicles of exchanging personal health data can provide useful information regarding the effectiveness of telemedicine and e-health as an alternative channel of care for such populations. The data for this study comes from a telephone survey of randomly selected 2371 households in four counties in the Central Valley. The study uses regression analysis to sort major communication mediums used and how it varies by factors such as income, education, age, gender and location. The study found that more than 65 per cent of the respondents are willing to use at least one medium to receive personal health information, which also varied by age and gender. It was found that there was a statistically significant relationship between age and willingness to seek certain mediums over others. The findings from this study have major implication regarding e-health policies and strategies for the private health care sector, local health departments and the state and federal governments.