How willing are consumers to share their health data? After analyzing multiple years (2018-2020, 2022) of Rock Health Advisory’s Consumer Adoption of Digital Health survey data, a clear pattern emerged–Americans fall into three distinct cohorts, each with different expectations around privacy when sharing data with stakeholders such as physicians, health insurers, tech companies, and more:
🌐 𝗣𝗲𝗿𝗺𝗶𝘀𝘀𝗶𝘃𝗲 (15% 𝙤𝙛 𝙧𝙚𝙨𝙥𝙤𝙣𝙙𝙚𝙣𝙩𝙨): broadly willing to share their health data. This group exhibited a balanced age distribution, with a nearly equal representation of men and women.
⚖️ 𝗗𝗶𝘀𝗰𝗲𝗿𝗻𝗶𝗻𝗴 (48% 𝙤𝙛 𝙧𝙚𝙨𝙥𝙤𝙣𝙙𝙚𝙣𝙩𝙨): selectively open to sharing health data with their family, clinicians, and pharmacists, but reluctant to share with digital and research players. Older adults and Medicare recipients are predominantly found in this group.
⚠️ 𝗪𝗮𝗿𝘆 (37% 𝙤𝙛 𝙧𝙚𝙨𝙥𝙤𝙣𝙙𝙚𝙣𝙩𝙨): consistently conservative when sharing health data with stakeholders. This group has a higher percentage of young respondents (18-44), urban-dwellers, and uninsured individuals.
Featured in the 𝘑𝘰𝘶𝘳𝘯𝘢𝘭 𝘰𝘧 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘈𝘮𝘦𝘳𝘪𝘤𝘢𝘯 𝘔𝘦𝘥𝘪𝘤𝘢𝘭 𝘐𝘯𝘧𝘰𝘳𝘮𝘢𝘵𝘪𝘤𝘴 𝘈𝘴𝘴𝘰𝘤𝘪𝘢𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯, these findings highlight the diversity in U.S. consumers’ attitudes toward health data—underscoring the need for companies to consider these distinct mindsets when building data privacy policies and practices. Congratulations to former Rock Health fellow Ashwini Nagappan, PhD, MBE for co-authoring this thought-provoking paper: https://lnkd.in/gYZD4gdC!
Is your organization managing a consumer health data strategy? Let’s chat—reach out to 𝗮𝗱𝘃𝗶𝘀𝗼𝗿𝘆@𝗿𝗼𝗰𝗸𝗵𝗲𝗮𝗹𝘁𝗵.𝗰𝗼𝗺 to explore how to align with evolving consumer expectations. And stay tuned for our next consumer adoption piece dropping in March!