Intel mobile health Dec 13

While about 53% of people globally are willing to share various types of personal data overall, the kind of data willing-to-be-shared varies by type of information — and what country we’re from.

When asked how likely they would be to anonymously share information if it could lead to improvements or innovations in that technology, Americans are less likely to be willing to share any type of personal data — except for gender. When it comes to sharing several specific types of health information, fewer Americans are likely to want to share it as Intel found in their survey published in the company’s Healthcare Innovation Barometer published in December 2013. Intel released these findings during the 2013 Mobile Health Summit.

Specifically:

– 44% of Americans would be willing to anonymously share genetic information vs. 47% of people in other countries surveyed

– 33% of Americans would be willing to share health records, vs. 47% of other health citizens

– 31% of Americans would be willing to share medical records versus 45% of global peers.

Strikingly (and optimistically), people globally are more willing to share information for the sake of others when it comes to these three categories of information – genetic info, health and medical records.

Describing this statistic finding, Intel coins the phrase “affluent data altruists.”

Note that people with higher incomes are more likely willing to share personal information and have been more exposed to technology and devices. Thus, Americans look much more like people from France, Italy and Japan compared with health citizens from more developing parts of the world including Brazil, China, India and Indonesia.

Intel polled 12,002 online consumers globally, including 1500 from the U.S., and an equal number in Brazil, China, France, India (+1), Indonesia, Italy (+1), and Japan, in July-August 2013.

Note that the infographic from Intel shows data from the global data set of 12,002 — including all of the countries noted.

Health Populi’s Hot Points:  Health is social – there’s no doubt about it. And there’s a growing trend of people sharing personal data with other people like us: they/we are…

  • Folks who are battling various cancers, finding each other through the ACOR listserv and SmartPatients
  • People dealing with side effects who are taking the same drug, finding each other on CureTogether
  • Women managing migraine headaches on Migraine.com
  • Men linking up to share prostate cancer survival tips on MyBridge4Life.

In each of these cases, we see “affluent data altruists” in real life in real time. Susannah Fox of the Pew Internet Project  has recently written about the idea that human kindness can couple with technology to bolster an ideal health care delivery system. Intel has quantified this phenomenon, and at this holiday season, it’s a beautiful thing to call out. No matter who we are, or where we live: we can all be data altruistic.