[Fwd: Seniors' use of the Internet]

[Laura Larsson]

  Friends:

 From our colleagues at SeniorNet comes this report.

Given that 70% of our honored elders (at least from this survey) use the 
Internet to search for health information, should we as public health 
professionals be pushing to get more of the wonderful public 
health/health promotion materials we produce up on the Web?

How can we accomplish this with limited resources if we think it's 
important? Suggestions?

Should we just find and aggregate and link to the best quality public 
health/health education content from our local health jurisdiction 
Websites? (Do all local health jurisdictions have Web sites to use in 
disseminating information and health promotion content)?

Should we partner with the National Library of Medicine and the 
thousands of public health and medical librarians to get content 
Web-ready? Is that even practical?

(Note MEDLINEPlus - http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/  - has quite a 
bit of good health information up on its siteand the Public Health 
Partners page  - http://nnlm.gov/partners/ - is making more available). 
 Librarians and public health folks are natural partners. We have the 
HTML experience and you have the content expertise.  NLM does have 
grants to connect PH practitioners and librarians, although they have 
been for training and Internet connections. Perhaps we might think about 
linking the two expertises around the creation of additional public 
health/prevention content).

Comments anyone?

Laura

-------- Original Message --------
Subject: Seniors' use of the Internet
Date: Mon, 13 Jan 2003 11:57:20 -0500
From: "Zeller, Paula (NIH/NCI)" <zellerp at MAIL.NIH.GOV>
Reply-To: "Zeller, Paula (NIH/NCI)" <zellerp at MAIL.NIH.GOV>
To: NEWMEDIACY at LIST.NIH.GOV



An online survey of 2,084 adults 50 years and older revealed that 70% use
the Internet to research health information -- surpassed only by "stay
current with news and events" (72%) and "stay in touch with friends and
relatives" (94%).  The SeniorNet survey also found that 46% of respondents
have been using the Internet for more than 5 years.

SeniorNet Survey on Internet Use, November 2002 (November 2002, SeniorNet)
http://www.seniornet.org/php/default.php?PageID=5469

Paula K. Zeller, M.A.
Office of the Director
Division of Cancer Control and Population Sciences
National Cancer Institute
Room 6131A, MSC 7338
6130 Executive Blvd.
Bethesda, MD 20892-7338
301-594-7295 Phone
301-594-6787 Fax
zellerp at mail.nih.gov

Join NewMediacy:  NCI's listserv with news relevant to health/cancer
communications.  E-mail zellerp at mail.nih.gov to sign up.


-- 
Regards,

Laura Larsson
Digital Asset Manager

Clinical Faculty
Health Services, Box 357660
University of Washington
Seattle, WA  98195
larsson at u.washington.edu
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"The illiterate of the 21st century will not be those who cannot read and write, but those who cannot learn, unlearn, and relearn. "  Alvin Toffler
"Only those who will risk going too far can possibly find out how far one can go." T. S. Eliot
"The master in the art of living makes little distinction between his work and his play, his labor and his leisure, his mind and his body, his information and his recreation, his love and his religion. He hardly knows which is which. He simply pursues his vision of excellence at whatever he does, leaving others to decide whether he is working or playing. To him he's always doing both." James Michener

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