Digital Health Literacy

Digital health literacy, often called eHealth literacy, is the set of skills needed to seek, find, understand, appraise, and apply health information from electronic sources to address a health problem. It extends traditional health literacy to the demands of websites, apps, social media, and online services, where people must also navigate technology and judge the quality of fast-moving information.

Definition

Digital health literacy is the ability to use information and communication technologies to seek, find, understand, appraise, and apply health information from electronic sources in order to make health decisions.

Scope

This entry covers the concept of eHealth literacy, the component skills it bundles, how it is measured, and why it matters as health services and information move online. It is a reference and educational overview of a communication construct; it does not evaluate specific platforms or give individual advice.

Core questions

• What skills distinguish digital health literacy from traditional health literacy?
• How are operational, navigational, information, and appraisal skills combined when people use online health resources?
• How is digital health literacy measured, and what do existing instruments capture?
• How does unequal access to and skill with digital tools affect health information and the digital divide?

Key concepts

• eHealth literacy as a composite of multiple literacies
• Operational and navigational (technical) skills
• Information-seeking and search skills
• Appraisal of online information quality
• Web 1.0 (consuming) versus Web 2.0 (interacting and contributing) skills
• Self-report measurement (e.g., eHEALS, DHLI)
• The digital divide and unequal access

Key theories

Lily model of eHealth literacy

Norman and Skinner describe eHealth literacy as built from six interacting literacies, traditional, health, information, scientific, media, and computer literacy, that converge when a person engages with electronic health resources, framing it as a composite, context-dependent skill set rather than a single ability.

Mechanisms

Using online health information requires layering technical skills on top of traditional and health literacy. A person must operate a device and interface, navigate and search effectively, comprehend the content, and critically appraise its reliability, then apply it to a decision. With interactive platforms, additional skills are needed to communicate and contribute safely. Because these skills combine and depend on the digital environment and the task, a person can be capable in one context and struggle in another, and gaps in any component, or in access to technology itself, can block the path from information to use.

Clinical relevance

Digital health literacy shapes who can benefit from online information, patient portals, telehealth, and health apps, and it informs how such tools and content are designed. This entry describes the construct and its measurement at a reference level; it does not recommend particular digital services or provide individualized guidance.

Epidemiology

Self-reported digital health literacy tends to be lower among older adults and people with less education or limited internet access, patterns that overlap with the broader digital divide. As health services increasingly move online, these gaps raise the prospect that digital channels could widen existing disparities unless access and skills are addressed.

Evidence & guidelines

Validated self-report instruments such as the eHealth Literacy Scale and the Digital Health Literacy Instrument operationalize the construct and are widely used in research, though debate continues over whether self-report fully captures actual skill. Conceptual models situate eHealth literacy within integrated definitions of health literacy, and research increasingly examines its role in equitable access to digital health services.

History

As consumer health information moved online in the early 2000s, researchers argued that traditional health-literacy measures did not capture the new demands of electronic sources, and the eHealth literacy concept and its first self-report scale were introduced in 2006. The rise of interactive Web 2.0 platforms prompted broader instruments in the 2010s that added skills for adding to and interacting with online content.

Debates

Does self-report measure actual digital skill?

Widely used scales rely on people rating their own abilities, but self-perceived eHealth literacy may diverge from demonstrated performance, prompting calls for performance-based or task-based assessment alongside self-report.

Key figures

• Cameron D. Norman
• Harvey A. Skinner
• Rosalie van der Vaart
• Constance Drossaert

Seminal works

• norman-skinner-2006
• norman-eheals-2006
• vandervaart-2017

Frequently asked questions

How is digital health literacy different from health literacy?

It includes the skills of traditional health literacy but adds the technical, navigational, and appraisal abilities needed to use electronic sources such as websites, apps, and social media.

Why does digital health literacy matter for health equity?

Because access to and skill with digital tools are unevenly distributed, moving information and services online can widen disparities unless those gaps, often called the digital divide, are addressed.