The Digitization of Healthcare: Boundary Risks, Emotion, and Consumer Willingness to Disclose Personal Health Information
Authors: Anderson, Catherine L.; Agarwal, Ritu
Journal: Information Systems Research (2011)
<jats:p>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 nati…