The Digitization of Healthcare: Boundary Risks, Emotion, and Consumer Willingness to Disclose Personal Health Information.

Author List: Anderson, Catherine L.; Agarwal, Ritu;
Information Systems Research, 2011, Volume 22, Issue 3, Page 469-490.
As healthcare becomes increasingly digitized, the promise of improved care enabled by technological advances inevitably must be traded off against any unintended negative consequences. There is little else that is as consequential to an individual as his or her health. In this context, the privacy of one's personal health information has escalated as a matter of significant concern for the public. We pose the question: under what circumstances will individuals be willing to disclose identified personal health information and permit it to be digitized? Using privacy boundary theory and recent developments in the literature related to risk-as-feelings as the core conceptual foundation, we propose and test a model explicating the role played by type of information requested (general health, mental health, genetic), the purpose for which it is to be used (patient care, research, marketing), and the requesting stakeholder (doctors/hospitals, the government, pharmaceutical companies) in an individual's willingness to disclose personal health information. Furthermore, we explore the impact of emotion linked to one's health condition on willingness to disclose. Results from a nationally representative sample of over 1,000 adults underscore the complexity of the health information disclosure decision and show that emotion plays a significant role, highlighting the need for re-examining the timing of consent. Theoretically, the study extends the dominant cognitive-consequentialist approach to privacy by incorporating the role of emotion. It further refines the privacy calculus to incorporate the moderating influence of contextual factors salient in the healthcare setting. The practical implications of this study include an improved understanding of consumer concerns and potential impacts regarding the electronic storage of health information that can be used to craft policy.
Keywords: communication privacy management; emotion; empathy gap; healthcare; privacy calculus
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#239 0.253 privacy information concerns individuals personal disclosure protection concern consumers practices control data private calculus regulation risk individual legislation government sensitive
#196 0.153 health healthcare medical care patient patients hospital hospitals hit health-care telemedicine systems records clinical practices physician electronic physicians longitudinal outcomes
#116 0.113 research study influence effects literature theoretical use understanding theory using impact behavior insights examine influences mechanisms specifically context perspective findings
#218 0.094 role roles gender differences women significant play age men plays sample differ played vary understand critical greater implications relatively offered
#290 0.092 emotions research fmri emotional neuroscience study brain neurois emotion functional neurophysiological distrust cognitive related imaging tools effects warnings magnetic turn
#54 0.061 approach conditions organizational actions emergence dynamics traditional theoretical emergent consequences developments case suggest make organization point outcomes recent trajectory claims
#173 0.061 effect impact affect results positive effects direct findings influence important positively model data suggest test factors negative affects significant relationship
#13 0.058 personalization content personalized willingness web pay online likelihood information consumers cues customers consumer services elaboration preference experiment framing customized timing