Why Are We Talking About Information Behavior?

As we discuss the benefits and challenges that AI poses, it's important to consider health information behaviors as they stand presently. According to Google, in 2015, about 5% of Google's daily searches were health related questions; additionally, 89% of patients use Google Search or other internet sources before reaching out to their doctor. Since so many consumers of information turn to Google Search or other internet sources to find health related answers, the advent of AI will greatly affect how we find information, especially if tools like ChatGPT are free to everyone with internet access and a device (like Google Search).

As AI Stands

There are already studies that show "on average, the high-health literacy prompts [input into generative AI models, like ChatGPT] gave more correct, comprehensive, and comprehensible (for patients with high literacy) results compared with low-health literacy prompts, but they were also less concise." While high-health literacy prompts were less concise, they were generally more accurate, which is a priority for patients seeking health information (Lautrup et al., 2023). If patients who are most in need of health information are not able to easily receive it, AI tools could potentially hinder the goal of achieving health equity.

To use any technology to find health information that will impact their care, an individual needs a working level of digital literacy, which is defined by the American Library Association (2011) as "the ability to use information and communication technologies to find, evaluate, create, and communicate information, requiring both cognitive and technical skills." Of course, this digital literacy skill has mostly been applied in an online context, in terms of the Internet, but it will quickly extend to AI technologies. In conjunction with this, individuals will also need a working level of health literacy, defined by Sørensen et al. (2021) as "the ability to obtain, read, understand, and use healthcare information to make appropriate/informed health decisions." Using any AI technology would require competency in both of these literacies in order to make appropriate decisions that would affect the rest of a patient's life.

As we transition towards an environment that relies on AI technologies to assist our everyday processes, it will be important for us to employ some level of digital health literacy. At first glance, it would seem that digital health literacy is the combination of abilities you gain from both digital and health literacies. But upon further inspection, the reality is more complex. 

Rather than a one-sentence definition describing what it means to be digitally health literate, it would be more beneficial to rely on a framework of competencies to evaluate these skills. This means that for an individual to effectively use AI to make an informed health decision appropriate for their situation, they would need: 

• A functional ability to read and write about health using technology 
• A communicative ability to adapt health information online
• A critical ability to evaluate online sources 
• A translational ability to apply their findings in different contexts
• WITH additional knowledge and the ability to participate in society (do you have access to popular devices like an Apple Watch or telehealth apps?)
• Additional knowledge and discernment about cultural attitudes regarding healthcare and its lack of/availability to everyone
• Additional access to the internet 

(van Kessel, 2022)

While the digitization of healthcare has been a game changer for some individuals, in the seamlessness with which they are able to approach their healthcare, it is "clear that there exists a digital divide - those who are less likely to successfully engage with healthcare online (e.g., the elderly disabled, those with poorer education, and the culturally and linguistically diverse (CALD) groups), tend to experience the greatest burden of disease" (Ameen et al., 2023).