Misinformation, AI & health: Poll reveals older adults’ worries

While the vast majority of people over 50 look for health information on the internet, a poll shows 74% would have very little or no trust in such information if it were generated by artificial intelligence. 

Meanwhile, 20% of older adults have little or no confidence that they could spot misinformation about a health topic if they came across it.

That percentage was even higher among older adults who say their mental health, physical health or memory is fair or poor, and among those who report having a disability that limits their activities.

In other words, those who might need trustworthy health information the most were more likely to say they had little or no confidence they could spot false information. 

Among all older adults who have searched for health information online recently, only 32% said it’s very easy to find something accurate.

The findings come from a report on health literacy among people age 50 and older, produced by a team from the University of Michigan and AARP using data from the National Poll on Healthy Aging.

The authors note that health systems, academic institutions, nonprofit organizations and government agencies could use the results to help them produce and promote accurate and easy-to-understand health information in multiple formats.

They also point to an opportunity for organizations to help older adults understand how to find trustworthy health information for themselves or others. 

The poll is based at the U-M Institute for Healthcare Policy and Innovation, and supported by AARP and Michigan Medicine, U-M’s academic medical center.

SEE ALSO: Health plays a role in older adults' vulnerability to scams | Michigan Medicine

“Amid this lack of trust, our findings also highlight the key role that health care providers and pharmacists play as trusted health messengers in older adults’ lives, and even the role that friends or family with medical backgrounds can play,” said poll director Jeffrey Kullgren, M.D., M.P.H., M.S., a primary care physician at the VA Ann Arbor Healthcare System and associate professor of internal medicine at U-M. 

“We also find that websites run by health organizations are seen by most who use them as very trustworthy, which suggests a need to encourage more people to use them.”

In all, 87% of older adults said they had gotten health information directly from a health care provider, pharmacist or friend or family member in the past year. 

More than 70% of them rated the health professionals as very trustworthy, but 62% said the same about friends and family with medical backgrounds. 

The poll also asked older adults about how much they used and trusted specific types of online sites offering health information, from .com sites focused on such topics, to university, hospital, government and health-related nonprofit sites. 

Our findings also highlight the key role that health care providers and pharmacists play as trusted health messengers in older adults’ lives, and even the role that friends or family with medical backgrounds can play."

-Jeffrey Kullgren, M.D., M.P.H., M.S. 

In all, 58% of all older adults polled said they had used at least one such site for information in the past year. 

The kind of site used by the highest percentage of people was 39% for .com health information sites such as WebMD and Healthline, followed by 31% saying they had visited a health system’s website. 

SEE ALSO: Four years later, what do we know about COVID-19? | Michigan Medicine

Among those who had used a .com site, 36% said they felt its information was very trustworthy, compared with 59% of those who had visited a health care system’s website. 

Far smaller percentages had visited sites run by federal government agencies (21%), nonprofit organizations such as the American Heart Association or American Cancer Society (14%) and universities or medical schools (11%). 

But among those who had visited such sites, around 60% said they felt these sites were very trustworthy.

“Older adults are increasingly turning to the internet for health information, yet there is a significant trust gap, particularly with AI-generated content,” said Indira Venkat, AARP Senior Vice President of Research. 

“While AI advancements offer promising opportunities to support healthy aging, this poll underscores the urgent need for reliable, accessible health resources. Ensuring that older adults have trustworthy information from health care providers and credible websites is crucial as we navigate the evolving landscape of digital health.”

AARP provides free resources on the possibilities and perils of AI.

In addition, Senior Planet from AARP, a flagship program of AARP’s charitable affiliate Older Adult Technology Services, offers free online classes on how AI is being used in everyday life, how to spot it, what the current advances and limitations are, and how it will shape the future. 

Other findings about health literacy 

The poll also asked about more traditional forms of health literacy and trust in health information. Among the findings: 

• Eighteen percent of the older adults polled said they did not use the internet to look up health information at all; this percentage was highest among those over age 65 (24%), those who are Black and non-Hispanic (25%) and those with a high school education or less (26%). 
• Fourteen percent disagreed completely or somewhat with the statement that it’s easy to understand written information from their health care provider, while 8% said the same about information they receive verbally from the provider
• Twenty-six percent were not confident they knew or could find information about what an upcoming medical procedure would cost them out of pocket; Twenty percent said the same about potential prescription costs and 18% said they same about upcoming office visits
• When it comes to prescription medicines, 90% agreed completely or somewhat that their medication bottle labels are easy to understand, and 91% agreed that the information that comes with their prescription medicines is easy to understand
• If they were asked to fill out medical forms, 82% felt extremely or quite a bit confident they could do it themselves, but 5% were a little bit or not at all confident.

The poll report is based on findings from a nationally representative survey conducted by NORC at the University of Chicago for IHPI and administered online and via phone in February and March 2024 among 3,379 adults age 50 to 101. The sample was subsequently weighted to reflect the U.S. population. Read past National Poll on Healthy Aging reports and about the poll methodology.

This is an updated version of this article as of October 22, 2024 that reflects a minor correction to the results first presented on October 16, 2024.

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