Health Misinformation Online Disproportionately Affects Older Adults

Health Misinformation Exposure Among Seniors Raises Concerns, Study Finds

Older adults, particularly those with conservative political leanings, are significantly more likely to encounter dubious health information online, according to a comprehensive new study from the University of Utah.

The research, published in the journal Nature Aging, tracked the web-browsing activities of more than 1,000 U.S. adults over four weeks, analyzing approximately 9 million URLs and 500,000 YouTube videos visited by participants.

“Overall, the levels are pretty low,” said lead author Ben Lyons, an associate professor in the University’s Department of Communication. “Not all older adults are like this, but the outliers are concentrated among older adults.” The findings suggest that while exposure to questionable health information is generally uncommon across all demographics, it disproportionately affects seniors.

Only 13% of study participants visited even one low-credibility health website during the month-long monitoring period. These visits represented just 3% of all health-related browsing. However, researchers discovered a striking concentration pattern – the top 10% of participants accounted for more than three-quarters of all visits to sites containing potentially misleading health information.

The study builds on previous research that established older Americans’ greater propensity to engage with and share political misinformation. Lyons and colleagues Andy King and Kimberly Kaphingst collaborated with the University’s School of Medicine and Huntsman Cancer Institute to investigate whether similar patterns exist for health information.

Their analysis revealed that while seniors do engage with questionable health content, it’s not on the same scale as political misinformation. “The age effect is way bigger for politics,” Lyons noted. “People see politics as way more entertaining than health-related content. You don’t get a feeling of team identity from sharing health misinformation like you would for information that puts down your political opponents.”

The research team coded 1,055 health-related domains, identifying 78 (6.8%) that contained low-credibility health information. They examined both survey results and actual web-browsing data to understand participants’ online behavior.

One particularly concerning finding was that older adults, who generally have greater health needs and make more medical decisions, showed much higher ratios of visits involving questionable health information compared to younger demographics. Additionally, those who already believed false health claims or held conspiratorial views were more likely to encounter dubious health content, indicating that exposure isn’t random.

Contrary to what might be expected, social media platforms and search engines didn’t appear to be primary drivers of traffic to these sites. “We’re not seeing people being referred through Facebook. We’re also not seeing people being referred through partisan news media, even though that is a correlate,” Lyons explained.

Instead, the researchers found evidence of a more insular pattern. “It’s a more insular type of thing. They’re visiting these because they visit other low-credibility sites, they’re clicking through, and they’re spending more time on these sites. They’re going to them directly.”

This discovery suggests that interventions focused solely on major platforms might miss important aspects of how misinformation spreads. The pattern of direct navigation to questionable sites indicates deeply established information consumption habits that may be difficult to disrupt.

The findings highlight the need for tailored approaches to improve online health information environments, particularly for seniors. As older adults represent an increasingly digitally-connected demographic with heightened health concerns, their vulnerability to misleading health information presents a significant public health challenge.

Experts suggest that digital literacy programs specifically designed for older adults could help address this issue. Additionally, healthcare providers might need to more proactively discuss online health information sources with their older patients.

The research underscores that addressing health misinformation isn’t simply a matter of removing bad content, but rather understanding the complex patterns of how different populations navigate online information environments. As digital spaces continue to evolve, protecting vulnerable groups from potentially harmful health misinformation will require multifaceted approaches that consider both the content itself and the behavioral patterns that lead people to encounter it.