Want to view data on how Americans find, use, and understand health information? The National Cancer Institute’s Health Information National Trends Survey (HINTS) website and data sets might help. HINTS also assesses cancer information access and use, cancer risk perceptions, nutrition and physical activity behavior, and tobacco use.
HINTS has just released its latest nationally representative dataset and made it available for public download. This new dataset, as well as all previously released HINTS data, are currently available in SPSS, SAS, and STATA formats. With this release, modules have been included on genetics and cancer and attitudes about medial research.
Not interested in analyzing the data? HINTS also provides a quick snapshot of each survey item in its HINTS Briefs. You’ll find Briefs on topics such as HPV vaccine uptake, direct-to-consumer genetic tests, and health behaviors of cancer survivors, all from a public awareness lens.
HINTS data has been used by survey researchers, public health practitioners, program planners, social scientists, and graduate students to gain insights into changing patterns, needs, and information opportunities in health communication. HINTS has also been designated as a data source for tracking several Healthy People 2020 objectives related to health communication and health information technology.