Dear Robert
Thanks for pointing out your very useful editorial
at http://www.wellcome.ac.uk/en/1/homlibinfacthiiarc10ins.html
and the results of the Health on the Net surveys, at
http://www.hon.ch/Survey/analysis.html
While these are all useful indicators of the relative growth they do not
give a clear indication of the absolute level of use. Typical problems with
the data presented are:
1) that they count subscribers or people registered. This may double count
people who are registered with different names and overestimate by those
people who registered but then never used that service.
2) use the Internet as the survey method and then extrapolate to try to
estimate proportions in the population as a whole. This may hide large
differences between (eg) London and Glasgow, affluent and deprived, old and
young.
Even with these limitations the figures you quote in your editorial, suggest
that home Internet access is less than 8% of the UK population....which is a
good deal less than some extravagant claims I have heard recently. (You say
that 'Euromonitor have calculated that as of January 1999, 4.3 million UK
residents had an account with an Internet service provider.')
Thanks very much for your information.
Ray Jones
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Dr Ray Jones, Senior Lecturer in Health Informatics
Department of Public Health, 1 Lilybank Gardens,Glasgow G12 8RZ
Fax: 0141-330-5018 Email: [log in to unmask]
Secretary Rebecca Flanagan: Tel 0141-330-6110 Email [log in to unmask]
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