The effect of source credibility on consumers' perceptions of the quality of health information on the Internet

Recent use of the Internet as a source of health information has raised concerns about consumers' ability to tell 'good' information from 'bad' information. Although consumers report that they use source credibility to judge information quality, several observational studies suggest that consumers make little use of source credibility. This study examines consumer evaluations of web pages attributed to a credible source as compared to generic web pages on measures of message quality. In spring 2005, a community-wide convenience survey was distributed in a regional hub city in Ohio, USA. 519 participants were randomly assigned one of six messages discussing lung cancer prevention: three messages each attributed to a highly credible national organization and three identical messages each attributed to a generic webpage. Independent sample t-tests were conducted to compare each attributed message to its counterpart attributed to a generic webpage on measures of trustworthiness, truthfulness, readability, and completeness. The results demonstrated that differences in attribution to a source did not have a significant effect on consumers' evaluations of the quality of the information. Conclusions. The authors offer suggestions for national organizations to promote credibility to consumers as a heuristic for choosing better online health information through the use of media co-channels to emphasize credibility.