SPHHP study finds rural residents may lack access to health information

Access to and use of health information are critical to personal and public health outcomes, helping individuals improve knowledge, increase use of health services, reduce health care costs and adopt healthier behavioral patterns.

But not everyone has the same access to this information.

In a UB-led study published recently in The Journal of Rural Health, a research team looked at how rural residents may have lower access to and use of certain health information sources relative to urban residents.

“We investigated differences in information source access and use between rural and urban U.S. adults, and whether having low health literacy might exacerbate rural disparities in access to and use of health information,” says lead author Xuewei Chen, a postdoctoral associate in the Department of Community Health and Health Behavior, School of Public Health and Health Professions.

The study, funded by the National Cancer Institute, surveyed 600 participants — half from rural areas — about their access and use of 25 health information sources. Researchers found that compared to urban residents, rural residents had lower access to health information from the following sources: primary care providers, specialist doctors, blogs and magazines, and less use of search engines.

After accounting for sociodemographics, rural residents only had lower access to specialist doctors than urban residents. Rural residents with limited health literacy had lower access to mass media and scientific literature, but higher use of corporations/companies than rural residents with adequate health literacy and urban residents regardless of health-literacy level.

“We concluded differences in access to and use of health information sources may be accounted for by sociodemographic differences between rural and urban populations,” Chen says. “There may be structural barriers, such as shortage of specialist doctors and limited media exposure, that make it harder for rural residents to access health information, especially those with limited health literacy.”

Study co-authors include Heather Orom, associate professor, UB Department of Community Health and Health Behavior; Jennifer L. Hay, Elizabeth Schofield and Yuelin Li, Department of Psychiatry & Behavioral Sciences, Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center; Erika A. Waters, Department of Surgery, Division of Public Health Sciences, Washington University Medical School; and Marc T. Kiviniemi, formerly a UB SPHHP faculty member who is now in the Department of Health, Behavior and Society at the University of Kentucky.