Identifying Social Characteristics of Health-Related Information Seeker

While health information-seeking behaviors as an indicator of health communication of patients including cancer survivors has been researched, few studies how socioeconomic position and media use combine to influence health-related information seekers. This study examined social characteristics of health information-seeking behaviors in the relationship between individual’s socioeconomic position and their media use in the developed country. The data for this study came from a survey of 1,010 respondents drawn from a nationally representative sample in the Republic of Korea. We conducted multivariate logistic regression analyses for taking account gender-specific effects. We found that men who reported high household income were one and half times more likely to seek health information than those with low income status. We also found that women who did Internet search by computer at home were almost two times more likely to seek health information than those who did not. Similar results were found for men as well. Our analyses revealed that socioeconomic position and media use are associated with health information-seeking behaviors by gender. Studies on the information seekers may bring us more effective health promotion and relevant intervention for people with chronic conditions including cancer survivors. We thus need to capture their communication capacity and health disparities for strengthening survivorship and managing prognosis.