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Existing knowledge about differences in well-being is still incomplete. Based on the previous research, we hypothesize that there is a positive relationship between the use of health information from the media and well-being, and that the strength of this relationship increases with the number of years of schooling.

To test the hypotheses we used the data (n = 14,835) from the Eurobarometer survey which was conducted in several European countries (Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, the Netherlands, Luxembourg, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, and the United Kingdom). We analyzed the data by applying hierarchical multiple regression analysis.

The findings indicate cross-national differences in the relationship between the use of health information from the media and well-being. Moreover, they suggest that the extent of education matters for this relationship, however its influence differs across countries.

Further research is needed to explain the differences found between the countries. The research results offer some suggestions for further research and for social policy initiatives to reduce educational differences in the relationship between the use of media information on health issues and well-being.

This chapter draws attention to the interrelationship between education, use of media information on health issues and well-being, as knowledge about this is scarce.

Purpose: The aim of the study is to consider the use of the Internet as a potential facilitator of positive health-related perceptions. Specifically, we propose that online health information seeking fosters positive perceptions of health. Using path modeling, we theorized several mechanisms through which information seeking could be conducive to positive health perceptions, which we conceptualized into the following four dimensions: (1) sense of empowerment in managing health, (2) self-reported ability to take better care of health, (3) sense of improved health-related quality of life, and (4) self-reported improvement of health.

Methodology: Our sample consisted of respondents who have used the Internet as a resource for health information (n = 710), drawn from the largest national probability-based online research panel. Our comparison subsample consisted of older respondents (age ≥ 60; n = 194). We used Internet-specific measures and employed structural equation models (SEM) to estimate the direct, indirect, and total effects of health-related use of the Internet on subjective health perceptions. Based on our review of the literature, competent health communication with healthcare providers and sense of empowerment in managing personal health were modeled as mediator variables. We assessed whether the proposed mediational relationships, if significant, differed across our indicators of positive health perceptions and whether any differential associations were observed among older adults. We run parallel models for each indicator of positive health perception.

Findings: Provider-patient communication informed by the Internet resources were perceived to impart a greater sense of empowerment to manage health among our respondents, which in turn, was associated with perceived contributions to better self-reported ability to provide self-care, increased health-related quality of life, and improvement in self-reported health. The SEM results revealed a good fit with our full sample and subsample.

Research Implications: Conceptualization of the multidimensional aspects of online health information seeking with separate multi-indicator analyses of the outcome variable is important to further our understanding of how technology may impact the pathways involved in influencing health perceptions and as a result health outcomes.

Purpose: For deaf people who use American Sign Language (ASL), including cancer survivors, there are documented reports of difficulties in accessing and understanding health information. More than five years ago, a local breast cancer knowledge study with deaf signers found that only 23% of this sample cited the Internet as a source of health information. More research is needed to understand the current trends of a nationwide adult sample of deaf people’s experience with seeking and understanding health information across technology-mediated platforms.

Methodology/Approach: The Health Information National Trends Survey in American Sign Language survey included sections on health status, Internet use, and social media. We used several approaches to recruit deaf people across the USA, including Hawaii, Alaska, and Puerto Rico. The survey was administered online, in person, or through videophone. Following data cleaning, we conducted multiple logistic regression analyses, controlling for demographic factors associated with eHealth-seeking behaviors. The outcome variables of interest were Internet use and sharing health information on social media.

Findings: A total of 713 deaf people in USA (M = 49 years old; SD = 19) provided informed consent and took the survey. Half of the participants had a college degree. Twenty percent of the sample included those who self-identified as lesbian, gay, or bisexual and 38% who were people of color. White, educated, or younger deaf adults were more likely to cite the Internet as the first source of health information. Although all sub-groups were comparable in using social media, younger or ASL/English bilingual deaf adults were more likely to actively share health information through social media. While perceived trust in health information on the Internet did not differ across subgroups within the deaf sample, frustration in finding and understanding information was strongly linked to increasing age as well as those who prefer using ASL only. Users of YouTube for health-related information were likely to be younger or female.

Conclusions: Deaf users of eHealth information are diverse in terms of language usage, which affects their perception of accessing and using health information across technology-mediated platforms. While using YouTube for health appears to be accessible to deaf people, further improvements are needed to make health information sharing through social media inclusive of people who prefer ASL only. The addition of multimodal delivery features (text, audio, and video) in social networking sites has the strong potential to improve health information access and inclusion for all groups, including deaf ASL users. To make online health information inclusive of all groups, materials need to be accessible and easy to understand by all groups.

This paper presents recently published resources on library instruction and information literacy. It provides an introductory overview and a selected annotated bibliography of publications covering various library types, study populations and research contexts. The selected bibliography is useful to efficiently keep up with trends in library instruction for busy practitioners, library science students and those wishing to learn about information literacy in other contexts.

This article annotates 424 English-language periodical articles, monographs, dissertations, theses and reports on library instruction and information literacy published in 2021. The sources were selected from the EBSCO platform for Library, Information Science, and Technology Abstracts (LISTA), Education Resources Information Center (ERIC), Scopus, ProQuest Dissertations and Theses, and WorldCat, published in 2021 that included the terms “information literacy,” “library instruction,” or “information fluency” in the title, abstract or keywords. The sources were organized in Zotero. Annotations summarize the source, focusing on the findings or implications. Each source was categorized into one of seven pre-determined categories: K-12 Education, Children and Adolescents; Academic and Professional Programs; Everyday Life, Community, and the Workplace; Libraries and Health Information Literacy; Multiple Library Types; and Other Information Literacy Research and Theory.

The paper provides a brief description of 424 sources and highlights sources that contain unique or significant scholarly contributions.

The information may be used by librarians, researchers and anyone interested as a quick and comprehensive reference to literature on library instruction and information literacy within 2021.

Smartphones have great potential to bridge the digital divide that low-socioeconomic status (SES) Hispanics have been experiencing. However, little is known about this group’s use of smartphones for health information. The purpose of this paper is to fill the gap by exploring the context in which smartphones were used for health information.

The authors interviewed 20 low-SES Hispanic participants using the semi-structured interview method. Participants had not obtained college degrees and had annual incomes less than $30,000, but had used their smartphones for health information. The interviews were transcribed and analyzed using the qualitative content analysis method.

Being economical was an important reason for low-SES Hispanic users to use smartphones for health information. The users relied heavily on public Wi-Fi to access the internet. They searched a wide range of health topics, mostly using the mobile web rather than apps. They lacked knowledge and skills to effectively using apps, evaluating the quality of health information, and comprehend information.

Having access to smartphones alone does not help bridge the digital gap for low-SES Hispanics. Interventions need to consider improving these users’ smartphone literacy and health literacy, as well as improving their access to Wi-Fi services and to more quality content in Spanish.

Prior studies speculated that smartphones could be a means to bridge digital divide experienced by the Hispanic ethnic group. This study provided empirical knowledge about how smartphones are used by these users for health information, and shed light on the design of future informational interventions.

This study aims to understand the eHealth literacy skills of chronic patients and to explore the relations, patterns between eHealth literacy skills and different factors such as demographics, search strategies and health information sources and to explain their effects on eHealth literacy in Turkey in Izmir in COVID-19 outbreak.

A quantitative method was used in the study including a questionnaire. A total of 604 chronic patients responded to the questionnaire who applied the five popularly identified hospitals in Izmir in Turkey. CHAID analysis method was implemented to explore the strongest correlation between eHealth literacy and independent variables.

Using different social media types were correlated with patients’ eHealth literacy scores. Using Facebook, Twitter were the supportive predictors for the eHealth literacy scores. However, digital literacy was highly important for eHealth literacy.

This study shows that the social media channels which provides much more information such as Facebook and Twitter for the chronic patient. This could be beneficial for the eHealth tools and social media content developers in terms of the supply of health information. Moreover, the study gives ideas about the effect of digital literacy and the importance of health information provided.

The main objective of this study is to assess the applicability and robustness of the information motivation behavioural skills (IMB) model in determining dietary supplement usage of pregnant and breastfeeding women. More specifically, we examine the indirect effects of online social capital and internet use for health information on dietary supplement usage through self-efficacy and the moderating role of educational attainment.

Data was collected from 415 pregnant and breastfeeding Italian women using a self-administered questionnaire. Hypotheses were tested using Hayes's (2013) PROCESS macro for SPSS.

Internet use for health information is directly associated with dietary supplement usage. Online social capital and internet use for health information positively influence dietary supplement usage through self-efficacy. However, the results from moderated mediation analyses show that the mediation effects are moderated by educational attainment so that indirect relationships were stronger among women with a lower level of education than among those with a higher level of education.

Dietary supplement marketers and public health agencies can develop and implement dietary supplement promotional materials and interventions by disseminating information through the internet and social media and by strengthening social ties on online networking sites.

The originality of this study lies in the use of the IMB model as a theoretical framework to examine the mediating role of self-efficacy and the moderating role of education in explaining the mechanism of how online social capital and internet use for health information influence dietary supplement usage.

Provides a summary of a Department of Health funded research study investigating performance and impact of four pilot digital interactive television services in the consumer health field. These were launched in various locations in the UK in 2001. Text and video, interactive and transactional services were featured. Pilots were investigated using a combination of research methods. The four pilots’ performance varied, but overall there was sufficient evidence to suggest that consumer health digital interactive television has a healthy future.

The aim of this paper is to enhance the effectiveness of pharmacovigilance programs that provide information about medical products to benefit consumers, aid health care professional’s decision-making and improve community health. This research sought to determine whether distinct segments of consumers can be identified for prescription drug safety social marketing and communication activities and if these segments would respond differently to information about prescription drug products.

Theories of risk information-seeking behavior were used to develop questions for respondents in an online survey panel. Latent class analyses identified clusters that were similar in their ability to accurately interpret risks and benefits, preferred sources of health information, medication use and other related factors. Multinomial logistic regression models identified demographic and psychographic differences across the segments. Logistic and linear regression models were then used to compare each segment’s responses to a specific drug safety information product.

The 1,244 respondents were clustered into four segments: not engaged (12 per cent), low-involvement users (29 per cent), careful users (50 per cent) and social information seekers (9 per cent). These segments were distinguished by perceived seeking control, self-appraisal of skill, information insufficiency, self-efficacy, information competency and health literacy. Sources of health information and health-seeking behaviors were also different across the four segments. Significant differences were found among the segments in their comprehension and perceived utility of the content and their intentions to take relevant actions.

From an array of potential behavioral influences, adults can be segmented by risk information-seeking constructs and related behaviors. These segments respond differently to drug safety information. Use of the personas developed in this work can help pharmacovigilance programs around the world develop more relevant and tailored social marketing products, services and content.

A social marketing approach using empirically tested theoretical constructs can be useful for drug safety or pharmacovigilance programs. The results were used to create personas that quickly convey relevant information to drug safety program managers and staff.