2015 APHA Annual Meeting & Expo

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Recorded Annual Meeting Presentations (RAMP) are now available for purchase.
Only $90 for presenters, $140 for registered attendees and $200 for non-attendees.

Online Program

332280
Adolescent Judgments and Trust in Online Sexual Health Resources


Monday, November 2, 2015

Summer Starling, MPH, DrPH Candidate, School of Public Health, University of California Berkeley, Berkeley, CA
Background/significance: Despite widespread accessibility and reliance among adolescents on the Internet for health information, user experiences of finding and assessing sexual health information online is understudied. Trust in sources of information is linked to attitudes and behavioral intentions for sexual decision-making. Yet there is insufficient understanding of how adolescents search for and assess trustworthiness in online content about sexual health topics, and how this may impact longer-term investments with these resources.

Methods: Cognitive interviews were conducted with 20 men and 14 women aged 18-20 using a think-aloud protocol. Respondents performed online search tasks for sexual health information using four scenarios. Search activities, web navigations and browser history were recorded and played back as videos for probing following search tasks.

Results: Late adolescent users have implicit trust in websites that appear on the first page of keyword search results for sexual health information. General, commercial, and medical websites were perceived to be equally trustworthy for sexual health information as sexuality education websites. Blogs, discussion boards, forums, and other storied websites were preferred for finding information about sexuality and sexual identity. Young users implore a mix of heuristic screening and systematic assessment of online sexual health content, with most of the initial judgments of website credibility done on search results pages only.

Discussion/Conclusion: Young users may not access high quality or accurate content on sexuality education websites unless they appear as a top search result. Use of heuristics for gauging website credibility may occur faster in late adolescence compared to older populations.

Learning Areas:

Communication and informatics
Planning of health education strategies, interventions, and programs
Systems thinking models (conceptual and theoretical models), applications related to public health

Learning Objectives:
Describe the intuitive actions and thought processes made by individuals in late adolescence when finding and assessing sexual health resources online. Discuss the application of dual process theory for and related constructs for their use in understanding adolescent web navigations and processes for searching for sexual health resources online. Identify innovative qualitative methodological approaches for investigating the use of the Internet for accessing health information. List three strategies sexuality education organizations can enact for maximizing use and trust in their websites and other online resources.

Keyword(s): Adolescents, Internet

Presenting author's disclosure statement:

Qualified on the content I am responsible for because: I am receiving advanced doctoral training in qualitative and mixed-methods research approaches in the field of adolescent sexual health, and have worked as a Research Scientist I for a leading public health organization, Public Health Institute. Among my scientific interests has been adolescent sexual health and rights, and the use of research to inform policy.
Any relevant financial relationships? No

I agree to comply with the American Public Health Association Conflict of Interest and Commercial Support Guidelines, and to disclose to the participants any off-label or experimental uses of a commercial product or service discussed in my presentation.

Back to: 3220.0: Using technology to advance reproductive and sexual health