One Third of Adults Use Social Media for Medical Information

The Health 2.0 market grew substantially over the past year – 35% of adults in the U.S. now use social media for health and medical purposes. This translates into 80 million consumers creating or consuming content on health blogs, message boards, chat rooms, health social networks and communities.

A minority of consumers still report being influenced by social media; however, this differs depending on the health need or disease state. People with certain illnesses or health conditions (e.g. mental health, fibromyalgia, etc.) rely on and are influenced by user-generated content more than others.

These findings come from Cybercitizen Health™ v9.0, a 2009 study of 8,600 adults conducted by pharmaceutical and healthcare research company Manhattan Research.