Health Information Avoidance

Although learning health information can prove critical for health promotion, people sometimes opt to avoid learning such information. In this entry, we review and discuss health information avoidance research. We first examine the prevalence of health information avoidance and review demographic and personality predictors of health information avoidance. We discuss affective, behavioral, and cognitive motives for avoiding health information. Finally, we review several interventions aimed at reducing problematic health information avoidance, including self-affirmation, motives contemplation, and increasing perceptions of control.