People often seek health information from familiar and trusted sources like doctors, family and friends rather than formal medical sources due to ease of access and assigned cognitive authority. Common motivations for seeking health information include addressing gaps in knowledge, symptom or diagnosis questions, and beauty/fitness concerns. Users typically skim information for less than a minute per page and want content that is readable, familiar, and visually appealing with access to perceived authorities on a topic.

1. Human Information Behavior
And Health
• How do people search for health related
information?
• Who/what do they ask?
• What kind of health questions do they seek
answers for?
• What do they do with the information?
• What motivates people to seek health
information?

2. How do people search for health
information?
• Ideal search practices are not realistic search practices
• Less than 1 minute per page
• Consumers ask for readability, familiarity, visual appeal, access to
‘author’
• In reality, many users cannot remember site names, do
consciously validate cognitive authority
• Ease of use
• Simple search engines are favored over medical portals/libraries
• People skim
• Less than 1 minute per page
• Consumer tend to seek information from personal, trusted
sources: doctors, family, friends
• Weak ties vs Strong ties (Granovetter)
• People gain more varied information from weak ties, but still confer
with strong ties who have “more motivation to be of assistance”

3. Who/what do they ask?
• Human Services Information (Pettigrew)
• Information concerning well being
(emotional, physical, mental)
• Social interaction (give and receive)
• Trusted sources: doctors, exerts, family, friends
• These sources are considered ideal because of the cognitive
authority assigned by education or caring
• Familiar sources: search engines, consumer
websites, celebrities, television
• While not considered ideal, these sources are more often
turned to because of accessibility and ease

4. What kind of health questions do
they seek answers for?
• Where to get services
• Affordability
• ‘What will it be like?’
• How will it feel?
• What are the side effects?
• How will it be healed?
• Is it necessary/dangerous/normal?
• Student vs. Consumer
• Informative research focuses more on
construction of viewpoint
• Consumer searches are more
personalized, looking for an answer

5. What do they do with the
information?
‘Todd’s Trilogies’
• Construction • Append
• What do you know? • Add to existing knowledge
• Deconstruction • Insert
• What don’t you know? • Create bridges between
• Reconstruction knowledge
• What did you learn? • Delete
• What changed? • Revise existing knowledge

6. Thinking in Pictures
Processing Information
• Complete
• Fill in the gaps, insert missing knowledge
• Changed
• Revise or reconstruct existing knowledge
• Clearer
• Gain better understanding, expand on existing
knowledge
• Verified
• Fact checking, reinforcing existing knowledge
• Position
• Make decisions, place oneself at a specific point within
the issue

7. What Motivates People to Seek
Health Information?
• ASK- Anomalous States of Knowledge
• Gap in the knowing
• Need to know
• ‘Health’ Concerns
• Beatuy/Grooming
• Social Norms
• Diet/Fitness
• Drug Information
• Symptom/Pain Relief
• Diagnosis

8. Discussion Questions
These are broad questions, pick and aspect and discuss!
1. Todd defines exposure to information as “the act of disseminating
messages in the hope that they will be read and thoughtfully
considered”. What is the role of the librarian in delivering this
message? How can information professionals best construct these
‘acts’ and ‘messages’ for consumption by users? Keep in mind the
results from Eysenbach/Kohler in terms of ideal search practices as
defined by consumers. How can we bridge the gap between real
search practices and ideal?
2. Consider Pettigrew’s description of the information ground. How can
we define legitimate/useful information grounds? Pettigrew
compares the clinic atmosphere to that of a local beauty parlour.
Where else does information exchange occur, and how can we
capture and encourage these as information professionals?
Remembering the issue of cognitive authority, how do we think
about casual Human Service Information exchange in opposition to
formal information sources? What does this mean for the average
consumer vs. the student/researcher?

9. Please see
Bibliography for
works referenced
and additional
reading.