Trust in health infomediaries

Health infomediaries play an increasingly critical role in providing support for people's health and wellness decisions. Effectiveness of health infomediaries depends on people's trust in them. In this paper, we conceptualize a comprehensive synthesis of trust antecedents that are relevant to health infomediaries based on trust research and the actor-network theory. The model is constructed to highlight the factors that play a significant role in trust formation in health infomediaries. The empirical test of the model indicates that web users' beliefs about the ability and benevolence of the health infomediary critically affect their behavior intentions. Moreover, testing has identified the dimensions of information and system quality as well as the trust signs that enhance each trust belief Environmental factors also play a significant role in enhancing beliefs about the ability and integrity of the health infomediary. Our empirical results further show that an individual user's propensity to trust has a significant relationship with risk-related beliefs. Such trust and risk beliefs positively influence web users' behaviors. Our study shows the importance of context-specific modeling of trust in health infomediaries. (c) 2006 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.