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Medical Skepticism in the Digital Age: An Experimental Study on Digital Health Literacy

Individuals increasingly turn to the Internet for health-related information; simultaneously, medical skepticism endures in healthcare. Poor health literacy remains a problem in the US, and in an online context, this is referred to as digital health literacy. Drawing on theoretical concepts of cultural health capital and digital capital, we examine factors that contribute to two dimensions of digital health literacy: comprehension and compliance. Data for this project come from a representative sample of US adults, using a web-based experiment and survey (N = 2305) conducted through Qualtrics. We use a logistic regression to understand how dimensions of cultural health capital and medical skepticism contribute to comprehension of sound medical advice. Findings suggest that medical skeptics are less likely to comprehend medical advice. We use OLS models to analyze the relationship between cultural health capital, medical skepticism, and compliance. Findings suggest that respondents who comprehend online medical advice are positively associated with compliance. However, findings diverge in the case of medical skeptics. Medical skepticism is positively associated with compliance regardless of whether or not they comprehend the medical advice.

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Posted in: Journal Article Abstracts on 11/19/2025 | Link to this post on IFP |
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