Chul-Joo Lee

Prior research found that Internet use for health information leads to more frequent physician visits. This study explores the conditions under which this effect works by examining whether trust in health information from health professionals plays a moderating role in the associations between Internet use and the frequency of physician visits. This study uses a two-wave panel dataset with a U.S. nationally representative sample gathered in 2005 and 2006. The results show that the effects of Internet use on physician visits are larger for those who have low levels of trust in both cross-sectional and panel analyses.

Scholars have paid close attention to the effects of the rapidly changing health information environment. The issue of how Internet use for health information affects the frequency of contact with health professionals, however, has not been examined. Directly addressing this issue, a two wave panel dataset is used with a U.S. national representative sample gathered in 2005 and 2006. Overall, the results show that Internet use at Wave 1 positively predicts health professional contact at Wave 2, controlling for Wave 1 health professional contact and other potential confounders. The implications that these findings can have for future research in this area are discussed.

Relatively little research has examined the reliability and stability of media exposure measures. To address this issue, this study examines the reliability and stability of general media exposure measures using three rounds of the National Survey of Parents and Youth (NSPY), an in-home nationally representative panel survey of around 8,000 children (aged 9–18) and 6,000 of their parents. Using a structural equation model first suggested by Wiley and Wiley (1970) Wiley, D. E. and Wiley, J. A. 1970. The estimation of measurement error in panel data. American Sociological Review, 35: 112–117. [Crossref], [Web of Science ®] [Google Scholar] , we find that the measures for youth show moderate reliability with latent variables showing moderate to high stability. For parents, reliability is moderate and but latent variable stability is high. The implications of the findings for future research in this area are discussed.