The American Patient Online: How Americans Use the Internet to Learn About and Manage Their Health

Background:  Learn how the Internet is changing the American Patient based on actual, observed behavior of a large panel of users.  comScore will highlight online health information activity, and explain how patients are using the web to research, inform, and monitor their health.  comScore will outline how health websites, including government health websites, are used by patients, and will share key health information topics and digital trends to watch for in 2013.  These include mobile, tablet, biometric management, big data, and distributed content. 

Program background: comScore is an Internet technology company that measures what people do as they nagivate the digital world, and turns that data into insights and potential actions to help clients maximize the value of their digital information assets.

Evaluation Methods and Results: comScore’s data is comprised from two main sources, an opt-in panel of 1 million U.S consumers and 1 million non-U.S. consumers who have agreed to allow comScore to passively observe their internet usage, and, custom surveys conducted to U.S. participants who have agreed to be a part of a survey on tablet, mobile and internet usage for health content consumption. The presentation will:

• Quantify the total internet and discuss any growth and overall changes and trends that comScore has measured in the past year
• Quantify how government health sites rank in the total internet landscape
• Compare government health sites in terms of unique visitors, repeat visitation, and overall engagement (including minutes per visit and pages per visit)
• Quantify the number of people online who seek health information
• Discuss what online health information seekers are doing online as they research health content, including what content is sought for on PCs vs mobile and tablet, how health consumers use social media, etc.
• Discuss hot topics online and trends to watch including Big Data, biometric measurement, distributed content 

Conclusions:  Health content consumption online differs based on the device that a consumer is using.  More and more consumers are looking for health information online than ever before, and, tracking health online and on devices is becoming more mainstream. 

Implications for research and/or practice: Government health entities should know where the American patient is visiting online to better understand how to provide their audiences with the right information at the right time to facilitate health communication.