Health-Information Behavior: An Initial Validity Portfolio for Active and Passive Measures

Abstract

The study of information-seeking behaviors takes on particular importance when considered within the health context, where the process of information seeking can save lives. When individuals implement preventative health-care behaviors in the present, they increase the probability of saving their own lives in the future. However, the benefits of preventative health-care behaviors are irrelevant when the public is unaware of such information. Current literature indicates that there are two types of information behavior: active and passive. Active information behavior involves intentional physical behaviors, while passive is comprised of strictly psychological, sometimes unintentional, processes. The following article reports the initial validity portfolio for measures of both active and passive information behavior.

Keywords:

• Health
• Information Behavior
• Information Seeking
• Measurement

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Stephanie Kelly

Stephanie Kelly (PhD, University of Tennessee, 2012) is an Assistant Professor in the School of Business and Economics at North Carolina A&T State University.

Scott A. Eldredge

Scott A. Eldredge (MA, Michigan State University, 1995) is a Doctoral Candidate at the University of Tennessee.

Elizabeth D. Dalton

Elizabeth D. Dalton (MS, Middle Tennessee State University, 2009) is a Doctoral Candidate at the University of Tennessee.

Laura E. Miller

Laura E. Miller (PhD, University of Illinois, 2009) is an Assistant Professor in the School of Communication Studies at the University of Tennessee.