Reports
Use of the internet and digital technology to manage health in Wales – past, current, and future preferences
Details:
Authors: Diana Bright, Karen Hodgson, Enfys Preece, Alisha R. Davies
Published on: 1st January 2023
- In the winter of 2021/22, Public Health Wales carried out a survey with a national sample of 2,448 residents in Wales aged 16+ years to understand how people used digital technologies in relation to their health in Wales, how this has changed since the COVID-19 pandemic began, and their preferences for the future.
- 6% of people reported being without access to the internet at home, and we found no evidence that internet access changed since the pandemic began.
- We asked people with access to the internet about five health-related activities and how often they used the internet for each of these;
- tracking healthy behaviours,
- finding health information,
- requesting appointments or prescriptions,
- receiving clinical care or
- for COVID-19-related activities (e.g. symptom tracking, booking a COVID-19 vaccination)
- Since the pandemic began, 46% of people used the internet frequently for at least one of these five activities; COVID-19-related activities were most often completed online (27% of respondents did so frequently), while receiving clinical care was least often completed online (only 8% of people used the internet frequently for this).
- If we exclude COVID-19-related activities, 40% have used the internet frequently for health since the
pandemic began. This is an increase from 25% in 2019/2020, prior to the pandemic. - Younger users and those with long-term conditions were more likely to use the internet frequently for
their health, but patterns differed across the specific activities considered. - Amongst internet users, there were no consistent differences in health-related frequent internet use by
gender and area-level deprivation. - 53% of people would like to use the internet frequently to manage their health in the future, mostly driven by 30-44 and 45-54 year old age groups; the greatest areas for potential growth are in requesting appointments or prescriptions and in receiving clinical care. Variation observed between those with and without long-term conditions was no longer evident when looking at future preferences.
- People viewed convenience and anonymity as potential advantages of frequent internet use to support
health, while responding that digital resources do not meet their needs is seen as a disadvantage by
infrequent users. - Concerns around the accuracy of information and privacy and security of data online were evident
regardless of frequency of internet use to manage health
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