Consumers split on willingness to share health data

It’s about evenly split when it comes to willingness of consumers to share their health information for research purposes, according to a Truven Health-NPR survey.

Of 3,010 U.S. consumers surveyed during December 2014, 53 percent indicated they would share their health data anonymously to researchers. This rate tends to decrease with increasing age and levels of education, according to the report.

Consumers least willing to share data are those over the age of 65 and the Silent Generation (those born from the mid-1920s to the early 1940s).

Those willing to share data tended to agree to all purposes of its use, including as a way to reduce healthcare costs and costs for treating diseases, identifying safety issues, understanding underuse and overuse and better understanding how to spend federal health dollars.

Respondents willing to anonymously donate their health data were the most comfortable giving it to government researchers (92 percent) and the least comfortable sharing their data with drug companies (87 percent). The lowest overall level of comfort was among respondents over 65 for sharing with university professors (74 precent).

Read the survey.