OBJECTIVE: The current study aims to explore the trend of Internet health information seeking (IHIS) in cancer survivors and the relationship between four dimensions of digital divide (eg, mental access, material access, skills access, and usage access) and IHIS. METHODS: Data from three iterations (2011, 2013, and 2017) of Health Information National Trends Survey were analyzed. Only cancer survivors (2011: n=563; 2013: n=459; 2017: n=504) were included. ANOVA and multivariate regressions were performed. RESULTS: The rate of IHIS among cancer survivors has increased from 53.5% in 2011 to 69.2% in 2017. Also, across the three survey years, material access (eg, physical Internet access), usage access (eg, eHealth activities), and mental access (eg, trust in online health information) have remained in a significant and positive relationship with IHIS. Skills access (eg, health information seeking skills) and the other mental access factor, self-efficacy in health information seeking, were not significantly associated with IHIS over time. CONCLUSIONS: This research revealed a rising trend of IHIS adoption in cancer survivors, and demonstrated significant relationships between digital divide and IHIS. We call for targeted interventions to reduce the digital divide barriers for cancer survivors.
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Jiang et al. (2019) studied this question.