Older adults' willingness to share their personal and health information when adopting healthcare technology and services

Abstract

Background: Large investments have been made in the development of information technology-based healthcare solutions for older adults, with expectations for increased efficiency and effectiveness of preventive healthcare and chronic disease management. This study aims to explore factors influencing older adults' willingness to share their personal and health information when using healthcare technologies and services such as wearable electronic devices and relevant services, with a focus on information type and requesting entity.

Methods: Data came from a survey on older adults at local senior centers in South Korea (N = 170; mean age = 77; 45.9% women). Questions asked participants their willingness to share information about socioeconomic, health status, and medical service information with six entities: family, hospital, researcher, government agency, device developer/corporation, and insurance company. A series of logistic regressions were estimated to examine the associations of socio-demographic factors, self-rated health, and attitude towards technology with the willingness to share by information type and requesting entity.

Results: Higher proportions of older adults reported being willing to share their information with family and hospitals than with researchers, government agencies, device developer/corporations, or insurance companies (80.4%, 66.1% vs. 39.9%, 23.5%, 25.2%, 19.0%, respectively). Education and age were the most common factors affecting older adults' willingness to share across information types and requesting entities. Higher education consistently showed a negative effect on the willingness to share; however, older age showed a positive effect. Older adults with positive attitudes towards technology were more likely to share their information with device developer/corporations. Women were less likely to share their information with government agencies than men. Older adults with poorer self-rated health were more likely to share their information, in particular medical service information, with hospitals.

Conclusions: Older adults are selective about sharing their personal and health information when using healthcare technologies and relevant services in order to maintain and promote health, depending on the specific type of information and the entities asked to share with. The findings suggest that information granularity and empowering older adults with control over sharing each type of personal information will become more and more important in the practice of healthcare technology and services among older adults for the next decades. Also, it is notable that older adults have a relatively low level of trust in government agencies in relation to sharing their information. Healthcare technology and relevant services, particularly in public health, need to be designed and developed considering the privacy concerns and diversity among older adults, especially older women.

Keywords: Aging; Attitude towards technology; Digital health; Gerotechnology; Privacy.