Dr. Dina Borzekowski of Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health in Baltimore, MD, is the Principal Investigator on a Methodology and Design project entitled Measuring and Describing Online Health Seeking among Adolescents.

Q: What is unique and/or innovative about your study?
Though researchers have used Clickstream technology (software that collects a time-stamped list of URLs visited by a user) and recall questions to assess exposure to online information, this is the first study to combine these methodologies with eye–tracking technology. Eye-tracking technology allows us to play back a video-recorded search that an adolescent has done in our media research lab, showing the exact point on the screen where the user’s eyes were focused as the search progressed. This study will provide information on what adolescents are exposed to and what they are seeing. Also, it will give us additional insight into the search styles employed by adolescents when seeking online health information.

Q: How is your project progressing so far?
We have set up our media research lab and will begin data collection once the Hopkins Committee on Human Research (CHR) completes their review of our protocols and materials. In early Fall, we purchased our different equipment and software and have been practicing with it ever since. Also, we’ve worked with health experts and a youth advisory committee to develop and refine our materials. We look forward to the recruitment of our 100 adolescent participants as soon as we receive approval.

Q: What prompted you to explore this research?
Assessing exposure to different media is a tremendous challenge! While hundreds of papers have been published on media use and effects, no standard exists regarding the measurement of exposure. With the Internet becoming an increasingly popular source of information, it is important to better understand what it means for users to be exposed to and see health messages via the Web. With this in mind, I was looking for an opportunity to explore data collection techniques that help to shed light on what online exposure is. The HETI grant is providing an exciting and supportive environment in which to do this.

Q: How would a typical end-user utilize the final product/results of your research?
Through this research, we intend to create a concise measure of exposure to online information. This will be extremely valuable to those researching and using the Internet to deliver health information, as it will provide an accurate assessment of how long individual users are on the Internet and what they see while online. Furthermore, we will be developing a classification scheme, determining different navigation styles and preferences among adolescent Internet users. Such a classification scheme will be useful to researchers, web designers, and ultimately, people using the Internet.

Q: What are the greatest challenges in eHealth and more specifically, your project?
Our greatest challenge will be making sense of all that we are collecting through this research. From pilot testing, we know that for each participant we will have a tremendous amount of very detailed data.

Q: In what ways would you like to see eHealth evolve?
Once methodologies are standardized, I think it will be really valuable to collect longitudinal data from different cultures and populations on how people are using eHealth in their everyday lives.

Q: How do you stay informed of advances and innovations in eHealth?
To me, keeping informed on eHealth means reading the numerous emails and list-serves that I regularly receive. It also means attending small conferences that I might not consider otherwise, to hear what friends and colleagues are doing.

Dina, thanks for your thoughtful responses!

Visit this section soon for an update with Dr. Eve-Lynn Nelson of Kansas University Medical Center.