During that time the EU has grown in size, adding in 2007 Bulgaria and Romania – currently two of its least connected countries, but new information from the European Commission shows a steady rise in ‘e-patients’.
Last year 34% of the European Union's population browsed for health information, up from 16.1% in 2005, but there are wide variations between individual countries.
Luxembourg leads the way, with 58.2% of the population, while bringing up the rear is Bulgaria, where just 13.5% of people went online for health information in 2010.
The data also shows that in pharma’s five largest markets in the region the number of people using the internet to look for health information varied by nearly 25%.
Germany, with 47.8% of the population, was ahead of France (36.4%), Spain (33.7%), the UK (32.2%) and Italy, which trailed at 22.9%.
The data is contained in the Commission’s Digital Scoreboard, which tracks progress across 60 indicators, from households with a broadband connection to the use of e-government services.
Part of the Commission’s Digital Agenda push, the information has also been made available in a useful set of interactive graphs.
Europe’s leading countries for e-patients:
- Luxembourg – 58.2%*
- Finland - 57.4%
- Denmark - 51.7%
- The Netherlands - 50.5%
- Germany - 47%
- Norway – 47%
- Slovenia – 43.4%
- Iceland – 41.7%
- Hungary – 40.6%
- Sweden – 40.5%
*% of population seeking online information about health (2010)
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Autor(en)/Author(s): Dominic Tyer
Quelle/Source: InPharm, 14.06.2011
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