I saw the following juxtaposition in back-to-back articles in the SHSMD e-Connect enewsletter last week:
Striking jump in consumers seeking health care information
Number of “cyberchondriacs” has plateaued or declined
Don’t you just love statistics?
Of course, they’re both good studies, with the difference in conclusions coming from the fact that they look at different time periods.
It seems that after years of dramatic growth in American’s searching for health information online, we’ve reached the saturation point. Not surprising as growth in the number of internet connected users has slowed. Still, this amounts to between 122 and 160 million American’s searching for health information each year.
I think that’s enough for now!