Projects

Bodies Online: Information and advice seeking in the health and fitness domain

Aims

Identify the ways in which people evaluate the health and fitness information available online
Show how social identity, trust and information framing factors influence these processes
Map inter-dependent relationship between these factors, so as to develop and test a model of Internet-based information and advice seeking behaviour in the health and fitness domain
Show how the advice available online is integrated with other sources of health advice.

Methodology

The approach will involve both qualitative research methods. These will include content analyses of health and fitness sites, focus group work with key user groups, observational studies of people engaged in seeking advice online, an Internet survey and experimental studies to test the impact on attitude and behaviour of key variables identified in the model. Start date April 1st 2003, end date March 31st 2006

Keywords

Internet; health; computer-mediated communications; trust; advice; social-identity.

Publications

Sillence, E., Briggs, P. Harris, P, Fishwick, L. (in press).  How do patients evaluate and make use of online health information?  Social Science and Medicine .

Sillence, E. & Briggs, P. (in press). Examining the role of the Internet in health behaviour. In Oxford Handbook of Internet Psychology . Oxford University Press.

Sillence, E., Briggs, P. Harris, P, Fishwick, L. (in press). Going online for health advice: Changes in usage and trust practices over the last five years. Interacting with Computers

Sillence, E., Briggs, P. Harris, P, Fishwick, L. (in press). Health websites that people can trust - the case of Hypertension. Interacting with Computers: Special Issues on ‘Moving Face-to-Face Communication to Web-based Systems' .

Sillence, E. & Briggs, P. (in press). Please advise. Using the Internet for health and financial advice. Computers in Human Behavior

Sillence, E., Briggs, P. Harris, P, Fishwick, L. (in press). Developing trust practices for e-health. To appear in R. Song, L. Korba & G. Yee (Eds.). Trust in E-services: Technologies, Practices and Challenges.

Sillence, E., Briggs, P. Harris, P, Fishwick, L. (in press). A framework for understanding trust factors in web based health advice. International Journal of Human Computer Studies.

Sillence, E., Briggs, P. Herxheimer, A. (2004). Personal experiences matter: What patients think about hypertension information online. He@lth Information on the Internet, 42 December, p3-5.

Sillence, E., Briggs, P., Fishwick, L. & Harris, P. (2004). Timeline
analysis: A tool for understanding the selection and rejection of health websites. In A. Dearden & L. Watts (Eds.) HCI 2004: Design for Life, Volume
2: Proceedings of the British HCI conference, Leeds, UK, September 6th-10th p.113-116.

Sillence, E., Briggs, P., Fishwick, L. & Harris, P. (2004). What Parents Make of MMR and the Internet. He@lth Information on the Internet, 39, June 2004 p5-6.

Sillence, E., Briggs, P., Fishwick, L. & Harris, P. (2004). Trust and Mistrust of Online Health Sites. Proceedings of CHI'2004, April 24-29 2004, Vienna Austria, p663-670. ACM press

Briggs, P. Sillence, E, Fishwick, L., & Harris, P (2005). Reasons to be fearful: Distrust in Internet health services. BPS Annual Conference, Manchester , UK , March 30 th- April 2 nd 2005.

Sillence, E. Briggs, P. Fishwick, L. & Harris, P. (2005). Guidelines for developing trust in health websites. Poster presented at the 14 th International WWW conference. Chiba , Japan . May 11 th-14 th 2005 .

Sillence, E. Briggs, P. Fishwick, L. & Harris, P. (2005). Do health web sites offer patients personalised information and advice? He@lth Information on the Internet, 48, December 2005 p9-10.