IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/socmed/v75y2012i5p854-858.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Minority status and health information search: A test of the social diversification hypothesis

Author

Listed:
  • Mesch, Gustavo
  • Mano, Rita
  • Tsamir, Judith

Abstract

Group differences in the search of health information were investigated, to test the diversification hypothesis that argues that disadvantaged groups in society will be more likely to use the Internet and computer mediated communication to access health information to compensate for their lack of social capital. Data were gathered from a sample of Internet users representative of the percentage of minorities in the general population in Israel (n = 1371). The results provide partial support for the hypothesis, indicating that in multicultural societies disadvantaged groups show greater motivation to use the Internet to access medical information than the majority group. We interpreted our findings as suggesting that minority groups that do not have access to specialized networks use the Internet to overcome their lack of access to specialized information. Implications of the finding are discussed.

Suggested Citation

  • Mesch, Gustavo & Mano, Rita & Tsamir, Judith, 2012. "Minority status and health information search: A test of the social diversification hypothesis," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 75(5), pages 854-858.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:socmed:v:75:y:2012:i:5:p:854-858
    DOI: 10.1016/j.socscimed.2012.03.024
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0277953612002912
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.socscimed.2012.03.024?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Baron-Epel, Orna & Kaplan, Giora, 2009. "Can subjective and objective socioeconomic status explain minority health disparities in Israel?," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 69(10), pages 1460-1467, November.
    2. Lubetzky, Hasia & Friger, Michael & Warshawsky-Livne, Lora & Shvarts, Shifra, 2011. "Distance and socioeconomic status as a health service predictor on the periphery in the southern region of Israel," Health Policy, Elsevier, vol. 100(2-3), pages 310-316, May.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Pirrotta, L. & Guidotti, E. & Tramontani, C. & Bignardelli, E. & Venturi, G. & De Rosis, S., 2022. "COVID-19 vaccinations: An overview of the Italian national health system's online communication from a citizen perspective," Health Policy, Elsevier, vol. 126(10), pages 970-979.
    2. Di Novi, Cinzia & Kovacic, Matija & Orso, Cristina Elisa, 2024. "Online health information seeking behavior, healthcare access, and health status during exceptional times," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 220(C), pages 675-690.
    3. Papadopoulos, Nicolas & Cleveland, Mark, 2023. "An international and cross-cultural perspective on ‘the wired consumer’: The digital divide and device difference dilemmas," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 156(C).
    4. Safarov, Nuriiar, 2021. "Personal experiences of digital public services access and use: Older migrants’ digital choices," Technology in Society, Elsevier, vol. 66(C).

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Ameed Saabneh, 2015. "Ethnic Health Inequalities in Unequal Societies: Morbidity Gaps Between Palestinians and Jews in Israel," European Journal of Population, Springer;European Association for Population Studies, vol. 31(4), pages 445-466, October.
    2. Weinhold, Ines & Wende, Danny & Schrey, Christopher & Militzer-Horstmann, Carsta & Schang, Laura & Sundmacher, Leonie, 2022. "Assessing patients’ acceptable and realised distances to determine accessibility standards for the size of catchment areas in outpatient care," Health Policy, Elsevier, vol. 126(11), pages 1180-1186.
    3. Abu-Qarn, Aamer & Lichtman-Sadot, Shirlee, 2022. "Can greater access to secondary health care decrease health inequality? Evidence from bus line introduction to Arab towns in Israel," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 106(C).
    4. Sharon Merkin & Hadar Arditi-Babchuk & Tamy Shohat, 2015. "Neighborhood socioeconomic status and self-rated health in Israel: the Israel National Health Interview Survey," International Journal of Public Health, Springer;Swiss School of Public Health (SSPH+), vol. 60(6), pages 651-658, September.
    5. Jacob, Tamar & Parag, Ayala, 2015. "Equality, accessibility, and availability of physical therapy services in Israel—Perception of national directors," Health Policy, Elsevier, vol. 119(7), pages 990-997.
    6. Amira Osman & Katrina M. Walsemann, 2017. "Ethnic Disparities in the Onset and Progression of Functional Limitations Among Israeli Middle-Aged and Older Adults: Socioeconomic and Health-Related Pathways," The Journals of Gerontology: Series B, The Gerontological Society of America, vol. 72(1), pages 140-150.
    7. Md. Emaj Uddin, 2017. "Family Demographic Mechanisms Linking of Socioeconomic Status to Subjective Physical Health in Rural Bangladesh," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 130(3), pages 1263-1279, February.
    8. Pedro Marques-Vidal & Peter Vollenweider & Gérard Waeber & Fred Paccaud, 2012. "The prevalence and management of cardiovascular risk factors in immigrant groups in Switzerland," International Journal of Public Health, Springer;Swiss School of Public Health (SSPH+), vol. 57(1), pages 63-77, February.
    9. Abu-Qarn, Aamer & Lichtman-Sadot, Shirlee, 2021. "Older Adult Health Following Greater Access to Secondary Health Care: Evidence from Bus Service Introductions to Arab Towns in Israel," IZA Discussion Papers 14490, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    10. Anat Jaffe & Shmuel Giveon & Liat Wulffhart & Bernice Oberman & Maslama Baidousi & Arnona Ziv & Ofra Kalter-Leibovici, 2017. "Adult Arabs have higher risk for diabetes mellitus than Jews in Israel," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 12(5), pages 1-9, May.
    11. Marcel Sieberer & Saša Maksimović & Burcu Ersöz & Wielant Machleidt & Marc Ziegenbein & Iris T. Calliess, 2012. "Depressive symptoms in first-and second-generation migrants: A cross-sectional study of a multi-ethnic working population," International Journal of Social Psychiatry, , vol. 58(6), pages 605-613, November.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:socmed:v:75:y:2012:i:5:p:854-858. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/journaldescription.cws_home/315/description#description .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.