An Empirical Note on Health Vulnerability and Health Information Digital Divide: A Study of Indian Patients

Literature Review

Healthcare, along with agriculture, remains the core concerns for human societies as these are most elemental to life itself. Consequently, hence how the digital divide affects health care is an important question. Further Information is considered a vital resource in health condition improvement because it is “the first step to every healthy choice” (Gann, 1986) and it is “on a continuum between health education and health promotion” (Rolinson, 1998).

Healthcare has been affected because of the digital revolution we have experienced in last 3 decades. Before the advent of the Internet, healthcare providers were the sole and legally authorized individuals with access to gain, interpret, analyze and convey health information. This naturally resulted in them having exalted status in their relations with patients or health consumers (Giddens, 1991; Goldsmith, 2000; Hardey, 1999). Internet has at once opened the floodgates of information at the disposal of patients and common men. It, therefore needs to emphasis that, healthcare consumers seeking online information do not portray merely a change in transition in the way they seek information, or just an opportunity to avail what they could not earlier, but a dynamic shift in their empowerment vis-avis their own health. (Cotten, 2001). They have far greater ability to actively understand and influence their health status (D’Alessandro & Dosa, 2001), assume more responsibility for their own health, and participate in health care decisions (Anderson et al., 2003). This ability, though, has brought forth certain misgivings (Henwood et al., 2003) yet is being hailed as a right to information and physicians are being implored to treat patients as individuals and not as treatment opportunities’ (Gann & Needham, 1992). Even Information professionals, advocate empowerment of people through accessible health information (Calvano, 1996). Health information is promoted as essential in healthcare as it is believed to provide both direction and rationale for guiding strategic health behaviors, treatments, and decisions (Kreps, 2001).