Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2017 Nov;11(6):1692-1702.
doi: 10.1177/1557988315626510. Epub 2016 Jan 18.

Types and Factors Associated With Online Health Information Seeking Among College Men in Latino Fraternities: A Qualitative Study

Enmanuel Antonio Chavarria  1   2 , Elizabeth Hensleigh Chaney  3 , Michael Leland Stellefson  3 , J Don Chaney  3 , Nikita Chavarria  4 , Virginia Jones Dodd  1
Affiliations

Types and Factors Associated With Online Health Information Seeking Among College Men in Latino Fraternities: A Qualitative Study

Enmanuel Antonio Chavarria et al. Am J Mens Health. 2017 Nov.

Abstract

Despite the fact that a large percentage of Americans go online to seek health information, literature pertaining to online health information (OHI) seeking among college men in Latino fraternities (CMLF) has been nonexistent. Thus, the purpose of this study was to (a) identify the types of OHI that CMLF seek and (b) to determine the factors motivating OHI seeking among CMLF. Four 1- to 1.5-hour focus groups were conducted in two public universities in Florida with 41 college-aged Latino males in an established Latino fraternity. E-mails were used to recruit fraternity members. Qualitative analysis of the focus group transcripts identified that CMLF search for a variety of OHI types including searches on symptoms, diagnoses, weight loss, and treatments for conditions or diseases among other types of OHI. Factors motivating OHI seeking included informational needs of others and concerns for others, worries due to lack of health insurance, preoccupations with health condition, concerns over physical appearance, and clarification through social media. CMLF may be elicited to serve as information conduits to increase access to health information on chronic diseases for older non-English-speaking Latino adults. Lack of health insurance along with other factors in this segment of the population have led to self-diagnosis and self-treatment of illness. Thus, empirical research and health promotion on the potential risks due to self-diagnosing and self-treatment of illness is warranted among CMLF.

Keywords: Latino college male health; Latino fraternity health; online health information seeking.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

Declaration of Conflicting Interests: The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

References

    1. Atkinson N. L., Gold R. S. (2002). The promise and challenge of eHealth interventions. American Journal of Health Behavior, 26, 494-503. - PubMed
    1. Bell J. D., Bautsch B. (2011). Improving Latino college completion: What state legislators should know. Washington, DC: National Conference of State Legislators; Retrieved from http://www.ncsl.org/documents/educ/latinocollegecompletion.pdf
    1. Bellatin A. M., Eddy B., Perez M., Wolf E. (2008). Closing the mental health gap: Eliminating disparities in treatment for Latinos. Retrieved from http://srdc.msstate.edu/opportunities/samhsa_full_report.pdf
    1. Bodie G. D., Dutta M. J. (2008). Understanding health literacy for strategic health marketing: eHealth literacy, health disparities, and the digital divide. Health Marketing Quarterly, 25, 175-203. - PubMed
    1. Borsari B. E., Carey K. B. (1999). Understanding fraternity drinking: Five recurring themes in the literature, 1980–1998. Journal of American College Health, 48, 30-37. - PubMed

LinkOut - more resources