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National Cancer Institute
Health Information National Trends Survey
Part of NCI's Division of Cancer Control and Population Sciences

HINTS Briefs

HINTS Briefs provide a snapshot of noteworthy, data-driven research findings. They introduce population-level estimates for specific questions in the survey and summarize significant research findings that are a result of analyzing how certain demographic characteristics influence specific outcomes. Many Briefs summarize research findings from recent peer-reviewed journal articles using HINTS data.

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English Briefs

Brief 19: U.S. Social Media Use and Health Communication Download Brief in PDF Format
Cover image of Brief 19 Surveys routinely find that more than two-thirds of U.S. adults use the Internet, and about 60 percent of those online say they use the Internet to look for health or medical information. Although studies continue to show that ethnic minorities and those who are older, less educated, and less healthy are more likely to be non-Internet users, a more nuanced picture of this “digital divide” is beginning to emerge, particularly with the advent of social media and mobile technologies.
August 2011
Brief 8: On-line Communication with Health Care Providers: eHealth behaviors and trends Download Brief in PDF Format
Cover image of Brief 8 An emerging concept known as "eHealth" seeks to capitalize on the promise of new media technologies to facilitate equal access to timely and credible health information.
November 2007
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HINTS Data Terms of Use

It is of utmost importance to ensure the confidentiality of survey participants. Every effort has been made to exclude identifying information on individual respondents from the computer files. Some demographic information such as sex, race, etc., has been included for research purposes. NCI expects that users of the data set will adhere to the strictest standards of ethical conduct for the analysis and reporting of nationally collected survey data. It is mandatory that all research results be presented/published in a manner that protects the integrity of the data and ensures the confidentiality of participants.

In order for the Health Information National Trends Survey (HINTS) to provide a public-use or another version of data to you, it is necessary that you agree to the following provisions.

  1. You will not present/publish data in which an individual can be identified. Publication of small cell sizes should be avoided.
  2. You will not attempt to link nor permit others to link the data with individually identified records in another database.
  3. You will not attempt to learn the identity of any person whose data are contained in the supplied file(s).
  4. If the identity of any person is discovered inadvertently, then the following should be done;
    1. no use will be made of this knowledge,
    2. the HINTS Program staff will be notified of the incident,
    3. no one else will be informed of the discovered identity.
  5. You will not release nor permit others to release the data in full or in part to any person except with the written approval of the HINTS Program staff.
  6. If accessing the data from a centralized location on a time sharing computer system or LAN, you will not share your logon name and password with any other individuals. You will also not allow any other individuals to use your computer account after you have logged on with your logon name and password.
  7. For all software provided by the HINTS Program, you will not copy, distribute, reverse engineer, profit from its sale or use, or incorporate it in any other software system.
  8. The source of information should be cited in all publications. The appropriate citation is associated with the data file used. Please see Suggested Citations in the Download HINTS Data section of this Web site, or the Readme.txt associated with the ASCII text version of the HINTS data.
  9. Analyses of large HINTS domains usually produce reliable estimates, but analyses of small domains may yield unreliable estimates, as indicated by their large variances. The analyst should pay particular attention to the standard error and coefficient of variation (relative standard error) for estimates of means, proportions, and totals, and the analyst should report these when writing up results. It is important that the analyst realizes that small sample sizes for particular analyses will tend to result in unstable estimates.
  10. You may receive periodic e-mail updates from the HINTS administrators.

NIH… Turning Discovery Into Health®

Health Information National Trends Survey ℠ , HINTS ℠, and the HINTS ℠ logo are service marks of the US Department of Health and Human Services.

HINTS is a service of the National Cancer Institute with support from the Health Communication and Informatics Research Branch of the Division of Cancer Control and Population Sciences.