Human papilloma virus (HPV)-related information acquisition and seeking behavior among infected women: A single center cross-sectional survey in Shanghai, China.

Lacking of adequate knowledge is an obstacle to effective prevention of cervical cancer, yet factors that affect the information acquisition and seeking behavior as well as the information communication process are not well studied. We assessed information acquisition and seeking behavior, as well as perceived barriers of doctor-patient communication regarding human papilloma virus (HPV)-related information of infected women. Among 437 participants, 405 (93%) expressed demands for HPV-related information, while only a small proportion (100/437, 22.9%) actively sought information and felt obstacles comprehending. Web-based channels were most frequently utilized and medical personnel were the most trusted information source. Patients' satisfaction was significantly correlated with doctor's patience (r = 0.581, p < 0.001) and emotional caring (r = 0.555, p < 0.001). Compared to patients not actively seeking information, those actively seeking information were more likely to be single (p = 0.005), had higher education (p = 0.009) and monthly individual-level income (p = 0.023), and was more likely to undergo regular cervical cancer screening (p = 0.003), and were already or willing to be vaccinated (p = 0.008). The actively seeking information group also achieved higher scores in HPV knowledge test (p = 0.007). Public health interventions targeting HPV-infected women using specifically designed educational materials may influence information seeking behavior, increase HPV literacy and knowledge, which could potentially increase HPV vaccine uptake and cervical cancer screening rate.

Can health information acquisition on mobile app influence psychological and physical well-being? Examining mediating role of bonding and bridging capital.

Mobile application (app), with its expansive reservoir of data and content, harbors considerable promise in advancing health outcomes at both the individual and population levels. Nevertheless, there is a paucity of scholars that concretely examine the dynamics of health information acquisition within mobile app. This research presents a conceptual model aimed at investigating the potential ramifications of health information acquisition on both individuals' psychological and physical well-being. Concurrently, this research attempts to illuminate the underlying mechanisms behind these correlations through evaluating the mediating role of bonding and bridging social capital. The obtained results of a web-based survey conducted among 656 college students in mainland China suggest a positive association between health information acquisition and bonding and bridging social capital. Moreover, the study reveals that the impact of health information acquisition via mobile applications on psychological and physical well-being is significantly mediated by college students' bonding and bridging social capital. The cultivation of bonding social capital could exert a direct and positive influence on college students' physical well-being. However, there appears to be no discernible correlation between bridging social capital and physical well-being. Taken collectively, these findings not only complement extant theoretical perspectives within the scholarship concerning mobile app usage for health improvement, but also furnish several pragmatic guidelines for healthcare professionals and mobile app designers.

The relationship between public risk preference and the underuse or overuse of preventive health services in the information age.

The underuse or overuse of preventive health services by individuals is an outward behavioural reflection of their attitude towards disease risk, and they are strongly influenced by their information-acquisition ability. Therefore, we try to explore the relationship among the public risk preference, information-acquisition ability and underuse or overuse of preventive health services, in order to provide decision-making basis in the Information Age. The survey surveyed 2,211 respondents aged ≥ 18 in China from September to December 2019. Taking cancer screening as an example, the multiple price list (MPL) test and item response theory (IRT) model were used to measure individual risk preference and information-acquisition ability. The Logit model and Tobit model were used to estimate the relationship between risk preference, information-acquisition ability and underuse or overuse of preventive health services. Risk-seeking individuals were more likely to underuse preventive health services, while risk-averse individuals were more likely to overuse such services. Information-acquisition ability may improve the underuse of preventive health services in risk-seeking individuals but exacerbate the overuse of preventive health services in risk-averse individuals. Among the investigated information channels, the Internet is the most effective way for the public to obtain information. It is necessary to change the public's incorrect perception of disease risks and risks associated with preventive health services. In the rapid development of the Information Age, improving public information-acquisition ability is a practicable way to correct the negative relationship between risk preference and individuals' underuse or overuse of preventive health services.

Online information acquisition affects food risk prevention behaviours: the roles of topic concern, information credibility and risk perception.

BACKGROUND: The COVID-19 pandemic has not only brought great challenges to the global health system but also bred numerous rumours about food safety. Food safety issues have once again attracted public attention. METHODS: The data were drawn from the fifth wave of the first Taiwan Communication Survey database. The respondents were selected via multistage stratified random sampling. The sampling units were townships/districts, villages/neighbourhoods and households. The sample consisted of 2098 respondents. This study first used propensity value matching to analyse the direct impact of online food safety information acquisition on preventive behaviours and examined the heterogeneous impact caused by the difference in the degree of topic attention through value matching. Hayes' PROCESS macro model 6 was applied to confirm the mediating effect and the serial mediating effect. RESULTS: The research results show that an increase in the frequency of the acquisition of online food safety information significantly increases individuals' food risk prevention behaviour. However, only users with high concern about the issue are affected. The food risk prevention behaviour of users with low concern about this issue is not affected by the acquisition of online food safety information. Further analysis shows that risk perception and information credibility both play mediating roles in the impact of online food safety information acquisition on food risk prevention behaviour. Moreover, the transmission and united effects of information credibility and risk perception play a distal mediating role. CONCLUSIONS: Food risk prevention behaviours are an important topic for personal health as well as government management. Our study's findings can provide empirical evidence for risk managers and decision-makers to reevaluate the role of the internet in food risk management.

In Situ Probing the Mass Transport Property Inside an Imitated Three-Dimensional Porous Bioelectrode.

Three-dimensional porous materials have been demonstrated as the most successful bioelectrodes in bioelectrochemical systems due to their high specific surface area and abundant adhesion regions for electroactive bacteria. However, the pore clogging potentially limits the mass transfer process inside the electrode due to the unreasonable structure design and long-term operation. The investigation of mass transport behavior in the porous scaffolds is of great significance for designing the electrode structure and optimizing bioelectrochemical system performance. To in situ characterize the mass transport behavior in the orderly pore structure, model electrodes with 100 copper wires (10 × 10) are constructed to imitate a three-dimensional porous structure (pore size: ∼150 µm) commonly employed in bioelectrodes. The poor proton effective diffusion coefficient solidly demonstrates that the mass transport inside the three-dimensional porous electrode is critically inhibited, leading not only to a progressive change and sparse biomass in the biofilm development process but also to biofilm acidification due to serious proton accumulation. It finally results in sluggish bacterial metabolic activity and a decreased electrocatalytic capacity. The interior space of porous electrodes cannot be adequately utilized, resulting in the inability to fully exploit the advantages of their abundant surface area. Consequently, the construction of gradient porous electrodes with small inner and large outer pores to enhance mass transport is a feasible proposal for enhancing performance. The proposed methodology of establishing model electrodes combined with the in situ detection technique within porous electrodes is crucial for acquiring various types of physicochemical information inside the bioelectrode, such as biofilm growth situation, biochemical reaction conditions, as well as mass transfer characteristics. More importantly, the work provides a fundamental basis for designing highly efficient bioelectrodes.

Relating green information acquisition, absorptive capacity, institutional pressure, and firm performance: an environmentally sustainable perspective.

Numerous Chinese manufacturing organizations are grappling with the challenge of absorbing and using green information acquisition across the supply chain to achieve excellent firm performance. Utilizing the organizational learning theory's indirect stream of research, we address this research gap by developing a moderated-mediation framework to investigate the impact of green information acquisition and institutional pressure on a firm's performance. Hypotheses are evaluated by taking a sample of 567 manufacturing enterprises in China. Structural equation modeling (SEM) has been applied to analyze and investigate the proposed hypotheses. Empirical results indicate that absorptive capacity significantly mediates the relationship between green information acquisition and firm performance. In a similar vein, institutional pressure significantly moderates the relationship between green information acquisition and firm performance. Study findings have essential managerial recommendations for Chinese manufacturing enterprises, proposing that they considerably enhance their absorptive capacity and continuously monitor institutional pressure to reap the advantages of green information acquisition on firm performance.

Effect of Internet Use to Obtain News on Rural Residents' Satisfaction with the Social Environment: Evidence from China.

The deterioration of satisfaction with the social environment in rural areas recently has become a major issue in the rural governance of China. This study examined if using the Internet to obtain news would affect rural residents' satisfaction with their social environment. It used data from the China Family Panel Studies to determine the influencing factors of rural residents' satisfaction with their social environment in the Internet era. The research found that: (1) The Internet has become the main medium for rural residents to obtain news, which affects rural residents' satisfaction with the social environment. Specifically, as the number of days rural residents use the Internet to obtain weekly news increased, their satisfaction with China's social environment worsened. Internet use also affected satisfaction with the social environment more than traditional media, such as TV. (2) The influencing factors of rural residents' social environment satisfaction were heterogeneous among groups with different characteristics, with the phenomenon of the "digital divide" emerging. Women, middle-aged and older adults, and illiterate/semi-illiterate people used the Internet to obtain news less frequently. Based on the above research conclusions, governments should focus on and be vigilant against false public opinions disseminated online as well as improve the digital literacy of vulnerable rural groups.

Access to information on sustainable intensification practices for new agricultural business entities in China.

The adoption of sustainable intensification practices (SIPs) is generally lagging in China, as disseminating new technology to millions of farmers on heterogeneous smallholdings is challenging. Agricultural development strategies emphasise the role of new agricultural business entities (NABEs) in driving smallholder farmers' development. This study used a sustainable intensive apple culture system as an example of an SIP. To understand the effects of different information dissemination channels, extension service attributes, social networking structures, and socioeconomic factors on the efficiency of acquiring information on SIPs by NABEs, we used the censored least absolute deviation to analyse the data obtained from face-to-face interview surveys of 218 NABEs in the Loess Plateau. This study found that direct connections between NABEs and research institutions had the strongest facilitating effect on information acquisition, farm shops had the second strongest effect, agricultural extension agencies had the weakest effect, and field agricultural material promotion workers showed a significant adverse effect. Improving the quality of extension services has a far greater effect on facilitating the acquisition of information on SIPs than does increasing extension intensity. Relying primarily on weak ties to manage plantations significantly facilitated information acquisition, whereas relying on strong ties to manage plantations significantly inhibited acquisition. The study results show that implementing the "research institute + NABEs + smallholder farmers" technology extension model can significantly improve the adoption efficiency of SIPs.

Research on the Impact of Digital Literacy on Farmer Households' Green Cooking Energy Consumption: Evidence from Rural China.

In the era of the digital economy, farmers' digital literacy has a profound impact on household green cooking energy consumption. Based on data from the China Family Panel Studies (CFPS) in 2018, this paper constructs a digital literacy index using an entropy method and employs the Probit model regression and mediation effect model test to study the impact effect and theoretical mechanism of individual digital literacy on household green cooking energy consumption. The research results show that the improvement of digital literacy can effectively promote the consumption of green cooking energy in households. After using the IV-Probit model and CMP model to solve the endogeneity, this conclusion remains valid; The heterogeneity analysis shows that the impact of digital literacy on green cooking energy consumption of households in different regions and different income stages is different. This performance is specific to the eastern and western regions and low-income households. The improvement in digital literacy can significantly promote green cooking energy consumption in rural households; however, in the central region and high-income households the improvements were insignificant. Mechanism analysis shows that digital literacy has a significant positive impact on household green cooking energy consumption through non-agricultural employment and information acquisition. Based on this, it is suggested that the construction of a digital countryside should not only consider the construction of digital infrastructure, but also reasonably guide the cultivation of the internal digital literacy of the construction subject. Moreover, the cultivation of digital literacy should not only focus on regional differences, but also focus on key subjects and implement precise cultivation. We should give full play to the synergistic effect of digital literacy, and pay attention to the non-agricultural employment of farmers and information elements.

Pandemics and technology engagement: New evidence from m-Health intervention during COVID-19 in India.

Information provision for social welfare via cheap technological media is now a widely available tool used by policymakers. Often, however, an ample supply of information does not translate into high consumption of information due to various frictions in demand, possibly stemming from the pecuniary and non-pecuniary cost of engagement, along with institutional factors. We test this hypothesis in the Indian context using a unique data set comprising 2 million call records of enrolled users of ARMMAN, a Mumbai-based nongovernmental organization that sends timely informational calls to mobile phones of less-privileged pregnant women. The strict lockdown induced by COVID-19 in India was an unexpected shock on engagement with m-Health technology, in terms of both reductions in market wages and increased time availability at home. Using a difference-in-differences design on unique calls tracked at the user-time level with fine-grained time-stamps on calls, we find that during the lockdown period, the call durations increased by 1.53 percentage points. However, technology engagement behavior exhibited demographic heterogeneity increasing relatively after the lockdown for women who had to borrow the phones vis-à-vis phone owners, for those enrolled in direct outreach programs vis-à-vis self-registered women, and for those who belonged to the low-income group vis-à-vis high-income group. These findings are robust with coarsened exact matching and with a placebo test for a 2017-2018 sample. Our results have policy implications around demand-side frictions for technology engagement in developing economies and maternal health.

How Does the Change of Information Source Affect Residents' Risk Attitudes?

Using data from the China Family Panel Studies (CFPS), this paper investigates the effects of Internet use on residents' risk attitudes. Both Generalized Ordered Logit Model and Logit model are used to identify the effects of Internet use. The results reveal an association between Internet use and increases in both subjective and objective risk preferences that remains even after we adjust for possible endogeneity. The heterogeneity analysis also reveals that these impacts are different among groups with different reasons for Internet use and different personal characteristics. Our study expands the research on the effects of Internet on people's concepts from the micro perspective and suggests that while promoting the application of information technology we should also pay attention to the individual characteristics of residents so that we can better share the "digital dividend" brought by the popularization of information technology in the whole society.

The Impossibility of a Moral Right to Privacy.

This paper clarifies and defends against criticism our argument in Unfit for the Future that there is no moral right to privacy. A right to privacy is conceived as a right that others do not acquire information about us that we reserve for ourselves and selected others. Information acquisition itself is distinguished from the means used to acquire it and the uses to which the information is put. To acquire information is not an action; it is to be caused to be in an internal state. By contrast, means of acquisition and uses of information are actions that can be voluntarily controlled. We can therefore have rights against others that they stay away from certain means and uses but not from information acquisition in itself. An omniscient, omnipotent and omnibeneficient being is not thought to violate a right to privacy because its means and uses of information are morally acceptable.

Network social capital and health information acquisition.

OBJECTIVE: This study examines the associations of network social capital with obtaining health information from health care professionals, the media, and laypeople. We also investigate whether and how the relationship between social capital and health information acquisition differs by personal health literacy. We used a position generator to measure network social capital. METHODS: We conducted a survey with a nationally representative sample (N = 626) in the United States in April 2014. RESULTS: Network social capital was positively associated with obtaining health information from health professionals, the media, and laypeople. Also, the associations of social capital with health information acquisition from health professionals were enhanced among those with adequate personal health literacy. However, health literacy did not moderate the relationship between social capital and health information acquisition from the media and laypeople. CONCLUSION: Social capital may encourage individuals to utilize health information sources. Also, health literacy might reinforce the linkage between social capital and acquiring health information from health professionals. PRACTICE IMPLICATIONS: Social capital interventions may promote health information acquisition. Also, health professionals should communicate with patients in a patient-centered way so that low-literate individuals easily understand health information. Moreover, a universal precaution approach should be employed.

Public understanding of science and technology in the Internet era.

When this journal was launched in 1992, there was a growing consensus among political and academic leaders that a broad understanding of science and technology was necessary for economic prosperity and democratic governance. This was more of an intuitive judgment than an empirical one. After 30 years of data collection and analysis, it appears that these early expectations were largely correct, but the value of the last three decades of social and psychological research is that we now have a firmer empirical basis for these beliefs and expectations. This essay outlines the impact of the growth of science and technology and the development of new information technologies that have changed the ways that individuals obtain information. I will discuss the implications of these changes for democracy in the 21st century.

Promoting COVID-19 Vaccination Using the Health Belief Model: Does Information Acquisition from Divergent Sources Make a Difference?

As a promising approach to stop the escalation of the pandemic, COVID-19 vaccine promotion is becoming a challenging task for authorities worldwide. The purpose of this study was to identify the effective sources for disseminating information on the COVID-19 vaccine to promote individuals' behavioral intention to take the vaccine. Based on the Health Belief Model (HBM), this study illustrated the mechanism of how COVID-19 information acquisition from different sources was transformed into vaccination intentions via health beliefs. Using an online survey in China, the structural equation model results revealed that perceived benefits and cues to action were positively associated with COVID-19 vaccination intentions, and perceived barriers were negatively related to the intentions. However, perceived susceptibility and perceived severity had no significant relationships with the intentions. Moreover, the findings unveiled differences in the effects of acquiring information via multiple sources among traditional media, new media, and interpersonal interactions. Notably, new media and interpersonal interactions were more salient in promoting vaccination intention via health beliefs, compared with traditional media. The findings from this study will benefit health officials in terms of utilizing different information sources in vaccine programs.

The impact of digital finance use on sustainable agricultural practices adoption among smallholder farmers: an evidence from rural China.

Sustainable agricultural practices (SAPs) are conducive to increasing agricultural productivity and income while reducing resource and environmental stress. However, due to credit constraints in traditional financial markets, the adoption rate of SAPs remains low among smallholder farmers in rural China. Recently, the emergence of digital finance provides small farmers with a new way to obtain credit and alleviate their credit constraints, which may exert an impact on the adoption of SAPs. To verify this conjecture, this paper examines the impact and mechanism of digital finance use on SAPs adoption among smallholder farmers in China based on survey data collected from 903 apple growers. Empirical results showed that digital finance use significantly increases the number of SAPs adopted by smallholder farmers. Alleviating credit constraints, promoting information acquisition, and facilitating social interactions are the pathways through which digital finance use influences small farmers' SAPs adoption. Heterogeneity analysis showed that farmers with higher education level, smaller farming size, and who have received extension services adopt more SAPs with the use of digital finance. Therefore, it is suggested that the government should strengthen the construction of rural network infrastructure and provide training to promote smallholder farmers' access to digital financial services in a cost-effective and secure manner.

Searching for Mental Health Services: Search Strings and Information Acquisition.

Based on decision sciences and information processing theories, how information is acquired is the foundation of decisions and choices subsequently made. Adapting the Active Information Search methodology, the aim for this study is to examine what information potential mental health clients look for in a service provider through their use of search strings. College students (N = 519) from a large public university from the southwest USA (data collection from August to December 2018) were asked in an online survey to imagine themselves needing mental health services and list down the search string they would use in a search engine (e.g., Google). Content analysis indicated seven search string categories: location of nearby services, symptoms, types of services/specialty, asking for advice, questions about resources, questions about whether they have a problem, and looking for the "best." Further, multivariate logistic analysis indicated that gender, psychological distress, perceived normativeness of utilizing mental health services, and type of medical insurance were associated with the type of search string the participant used in searching for mental health services. Understanding how individuals search for mental health services can help guide mental health practitioners in what information should be included in their websites. Further findings and implications are discussed.

Too much or too little information: how unknown uncertainty fuels time inconsistency.

Under uncertainty, there is considerable heterogeneity in expectations of results, and the outcome of each choice is a reflection of those expectations. This study aims to understand the role of subjective probabilistic inference in updating information for decision-making procedures under uncertainty. We show that adding uncertainty of trade-offs in decision-making criteria induces more inconsistent present preferences. We find that subjective probabilistic inference results in different levels of information acquisition, which plays a central role in many everyday cases of forecasting. The result of forecasting exerts substantive constraints on cognitive processes and shapes a type of restriction or stimulus in decision-making procedures. As uncertainty increases, generated fear of losses turns into an obstacle to the information acquisition process, and especially participants with low probabilistic inference tend to overestimate or underestimate future unknown rewards. In addition, our experiment shows that risk preference does not play a key role in decision-making procedures under unknown uncertainty. This finding is an experimental manifestation of Knight's argument (Risk, uncertainty, and profit, Houghton Mifflin, Boston, 1921), which explains unknown uncertainty, and shows the relationship between cognitive ability and time inconsistency. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s43546-021-00189-9.

Toward a Theory of Visual Information Acquisition in Driving.

OBJECTIVE: The aim of this study is to describe information acquisition theory, explaining how drivers acquire and represent the information they need. BACKGROUND: While questions of what drivers are aware of underlie many questions in driver behavior, existing theories do not directly address how drivers in particular and observers in general acquire visual information. Understanding the mechanisms of information acquisition is necessary to build predictive models of drivers' representation of the world and can be applied beyond driving to a wide variety of visual tasks. METHOD: We describe our theory of information acquisition, looking to questions in driver behavior and results from vision science research that speak to its constituent elements. We focus on the intersection of peripheral vision, visual attention, and eye movement planning and identify how an understanding of these visual mechanisms and processes in the context of information acquisition can inform more complete models of driver knowledge and state. RESULTS: We set forth our theory of information acquisition, describing the gap in understanding that it fills and how existing questions in this space can be better understood using it. CONCLUSION: Information acquisition theory provides a new and powerful way to study, model, and predict what drivers know about the world, reflecting our current understanding of visual mechanisms and enabling new theories, models, and applications. APPLICATION: Using information acquisition theory to understand how drivers acquire, lose, and update their representation of the environment will aid development of driver assistance systems, semiautonomous vehicles, and road safety overall.

The importance of personally relevant knowledge for pandemic risk prevention behavior: A multimethod analysis and two-country validation.

Pandemics threaten world stability; however, spread is mitigated with prevention behaviors. We introduce "personally relevant knowledge" to explain the knowledge-behavior gap (i.e., objective and subjective knowledge on information acquisition and behavioral change). Hypotheses are derived from prior knowledge literature, economic psychology, and relevance theory. Multimethod analysis (survey data, partial least squares structural equation path modeling [PLS-SEM], and an asymmetric information theoretic statistical analysis) is applied to H1N1 data from the USA and Australia. Personally relevant knowledge is an important addition to prior knowledge conceptualizations, and information theory uncovers asymmetric variable relationships concerning the knowledge-behavior gap, not captured by PLS-SEM.