Year: 2016
Type: dissertation
Abstract: Advances in information technology have made a significant influence on healthcare.Among technological breakthroughs, Internet has revolutionized the way people have access to health information.People increasingly use the Internet to search for, exchange and post health information on various types of websites.Internet offers invaluable benefits to its users; nevertheless, this very freedom to post information and the resulting enormous body of information is also one of the major sources of concerns.There have been misgivings about the quality of online health information since the Internet has been introduced.The 'top-down' approaches to control the quality of online health information proved to be neither practical nor desirable.The advent of web 2.0 (read and write version of web) enables user-driven approaches to improve the quality of information through 'bottom-up' approaches.The critical question is what type of bottom-up approach is suitable to provide online users with high quality health information.Drawing on the market design literature, this research proposes a framework to understand and address (improve) the problem of quality of online health information.The research aims to identify the conditions under which a market for exchange of online health information works efficiently and then study the mechanisms to achieve the efficiency conditions and maximise quality.It also highlights the literature gaps for designing an online market that ensure the quality of exchanged health information.
Author: Fatemeh Ameri
Language: English
Subfield: General Health Professions
Field: Health Professions
Domain: Health Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W2945720344