Mobile Health 2010

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Mobile Health 2010

The online health-information environment is going mobile, particularly among younger adults. The Pew Internet Project's latest survey of American adults, conducted in association with the California HealthCare Foundation, finds that 85% use a cell phone. Of those:

  • 17% of cell owners have used their phone to look up health or medical information and 29% of cell owners ages 18-29 have done such searches.
  • 9% of cell owners have software applications or “apps” on their phones that help them track or manage their health. Some 15% of those ages 18-29 have such apps.

This means that health-information searches and communications have joined the growing array of non-voice data applications that are being bundled into cell phones. Fully 76% of cell phone owners (age 18+) use their phones to take pictures, for example, up from 66% in April 2009.  Seven in ten cell phone owners send or receive text messages; four in ten access the internet on their phones. In addition, 35% of U.S. adults have software applications or “apps” on their phones (but only one in four adults actually use them).

Read the full report Mobile Health 2010 on the Pew Internet & American Life Project's Web site.

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