The world's largest independent PR agency has long been famous for its Edelman Trust Barometer, an annual global study of whos, whats and hows of public's perception of trust and influence.

This year Edelman is breaking new ground with the release of Edelman Health Engagement Barometer, intended to measure the attitudes of the public towards health issues, products and companies (press release, blog, PDF).

These materials are worth reading and I will just add a few highlights

The study is based on an online survey of 5,183 adults (18-75 age) in US, UK, Germany, Russia and China (~1000 people per country).

Three major topical categories of engagement are defined thusly:

• Health Issues: 63% are already engaged
• Health Product & Services: 60% engaged
• Health Organizations: 40% engaged

Engagement "lenses" are defined by what people actually do:

• Health Involved (80%):
  Define themselves as "very involved" or "somewhat involved" in health
• Health Informed (33%):
  Reported to read, gather and share health info more than once a week
• Health Engaged (39%):
  Reported to actively seek and share health info or advocate a viewpoint

Edelman defines the people who fit all three categories (Involved, Informed and Engaged) as "Health Info-entials", an obvious derivative of Influentials. These most active individuals number globally at 22%. All countries of the survey fall into (20-23% range), except China (35%) and UK (13%). The rest of the study compares these Info-entials with general population by most metrics:

• More likely to work in health field (26% vs. 18%)
• More likely to have severe or chronic condition (41% vs. 34%)
• More likely to be a caregiver (17% vs. 11%)
• More likely to take prescription medications (47% vs. 41%)
• More likely to be women (50% vs. 46%)
• More likely to have children (41% vs. 35%)
• More likely to be employed (71% vs. 65%)

There is a lot of data in the presentation on what specific actions do people take based on their health interests. The overall level of engagement is high and I encourage you to check out the slide deck for details. Predictably, trust, authenticity and satisfaction are the most important. People are more interested in health engagement specific to "them, their bodies and their health personally" rather than a broader health issues affecting community and the world.

Online vs. Offline: The difference in level of trust?

The study was designed to look at engagement across all communication channels with online being only a part. Interestingly enough, traditional channels and sources of expertise are still considered more important. Conversations with doctors, friends and family, as well as medical journals are rated more important than "consumer health websites". Social networking and video sharing sites rank the lowest, right above "corporate and product advertising". Still, staggering 88% of responders said they turn online to validate their doctor opinions AND go to their doctor to validate the information found online.

Now, what is the true depth of health engagement ONLINE?

Unfortunately, the survey did not drill down into these questions, which I would love to get some hard data about. Anecdotal evidence, along with slow rate of organic growth of many health social media sites suggests that most "online health engagement" is focused on basic information research, rather than repeated and sustained action, such as content creation or use of online tools to organize and manage their health goals and activities. This information research is still highly critical and influential. However there seems to be a ceiling on higher levels of online engagement, which I hope will be investigated in the future.

Overall, kudos to Edelman for producing this study. Better data on public's health behaviors is sorely needed.