Toward an Understanding of the Antecedents to Health Information Privacy Concern: A Mixed Methods Study
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Toward an Understanding of the Antecedents to Health Information Privacy Concern: A Mixed Methods Study Grace Fox 1 & Tabitha L. James 2
# Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature 2020
Abstract As personal health information is digitized and entrusted to healthcare professionals and the technology vendors that manage health information systems (e.g., electronic health records), questions continue to arise regarding how this information is used and protected. By understanding what factors shape people’s health information privacy concerns (HIPCs), organizations can better manage reactions and concerns regarding the use of new technologies and guidance can be produced to help people better protect their health information. We conduct a mixed methods study to examine antecedents to HIPC and find that individuals’ characteristics, perceptions, and experiences all play important roles in shaping HIPC. We also show that users who report high HIPC are less likely to allow their health information to be included in an electronic health record system. The study is conducted using Irish respondents and thus provides a European perspective from a country in which health information systems are not yet widespread. Keywords Health information privacy concern . Mixed methods . Information sensitivity, ownership . Health status . Risk . Trust . Prior privacy invasion . Media coverage . Legislation awareness
1 Introduction Whatever I see or hear in the lives of my patients, whether in connection with my professional practice or not, which ought not to be spoken of outside, I will keep secret, as considering all such things to be private.1 – Hippocratic Oath
1
https://www.nlm.nih.gov/hmd/greek/greek_oath.html
Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (https://doi.org/10.1007/s10796-020-10053-0) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users. * Tabitha L. James [email protected] Grace Fox [email protected] 1
Irish Institute of Digital Business, Business School, Dublin City University, Collins Ave, Dublin 9, Ireland
2
Department of Business Information Technology, Pamplin College of Business, Virginia Tech, 1007 Pamplin Hall, Blacksburg, VA 24061, USA
Privacy has played a pivotal role in the health context for centuries as evidenced by the promise to protect patients’ privacy expressed in the Hippocratic Oath, the protections for health data afforded by legislation such as the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) in the United States (U.S.), and the widely held public opinion that health information is sensitive and should be protected (Eurobarometer 2011). However, recent technological advances in this context such as the growth in health organizations’ utilization of health information and communication technologies (ICTs) coupled with individuals’ growing adoption of mobile health (m-health) solutions for tracking their personal health enable vast increases in the volume and breadth of health data which can be continuously collect
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