Today, Edelman is proud to launch its second Health Engagement Barometer. There is an incredible amount of information in the study gleaned from more than 15,000 respondents about the public’s relationship to and engagement in health. The data provide insights into the factors that motivate people to take better care of their health, as well as how companies, regardless of industry, can protect and propel their business through effective health engagement. ‘Health’ is joining ‘Green’ as a business strategy across industries.

Within the survey, an online questionnaire taken by participants in 11 different countries, Edelman’s research team at Strategy One asked some important questions about the sources people use to find health information. Among those questions was one of relevance to the Check-Up: “What digital information resources do you use to help you make decisions about your and your family’s health?”

Based on the responses, we’ve pulled out some fascinating numbers to share – and we of course encourage you to check out other insights from the study to get a full sense of what Edelman’s evaluated. What do you think about these global tendencies?

Digital Health Engagement…

When you start slicing the data from the thousands who took the survey across the globe, 58 percent reported that they use at least one digital resource for information about health. It is crucial to note that this number is a representative of the population that is active online. Regardless, it demonstrates that people are using a variety of ways to gather health information – from brand Web sites through social networking sites.

…but with Regional Differences

Globally, the number of people turning to social media channels for health information is a healthy majority. You could cut it by continent to see the diversity in different regions around the world when it comes to accessing online health resources: United States/Canada (37 percent) and Europe (50 percent) are still relatively well connected to health online, but Latin America (70 percent) and Asia (74 percent) are impressively above the global average for digital information seeking around health. Once again, the role of the online survey may be at play here, as Internet penetration in Brazil, China, Mexico and India is well below 50 percent of the population, so those taking the survey were predisposed to specific Internet usage around a topic like health.

A Tweet Divide

While Twitter does not seem to be a major resource that North Americans turn to for health information (only 4 percent of respondents across the U.S., Canada and Mexico noted using the status-based network), 12 percent in Asia reported using it for that need – a full eight points higher.

Search in Emerging Countries

Search engines have become an interesting source of both primary and secondary confirmation of health information in the last years. While sources like Google performed relatively well across the board, it’s worth calling out that nearly two-thirds of respondents in both Mexico and Brazil – 63 percent in each country – noted using this avenue when it comes to seeking health information. This represents an interesting advantage over their Western Hemisphere counterparts from Canada (55 percent) and the United States (41 percent). In the data, Mexico had a lot more in common with Brazil, as well as other emerging countries such as India and China, than its North American counterparts – enough to impact the region’s results across the data.

Still Trailing Traditional

As you go even further into the regions, there are a few other interesting statistics to note. While the data show that roughly 1 in 3 Americans are turning to social media sources for health information (31 percent), that’s less than half as many of the 64 percent who turn to traditional media sources. Digital health is growing in importance, but in the States, there are still plenty of other channels that are absolutely necessary to acknowledge.