Examining Citizens' Health Information Privacy Concerns: An Extension of the IPC Instrument

The increasing social emphasis on wellness empowers individuals to track and manage their personal health using mobile health applications and wearable tracking devices. However, these devices require the disclosure and generation of copious amounts of sensitive health data and thus often foster concerns regarding the privacy of individuals’ health data. Notwithstanding that fact, the few studies that have examined citizens’ information privacy concerns in the health context focus either on a specific technology or utilize a one-dimensional measure of concern. In order to develop a deeper understanding of citizens’ health privacy concerns, this replication study adapts the six-dimensional Internet Privacy Concerns instrument to empirically test citizens’ health privacy concerns in the United States and Ireland. The paper advances understanding by illustrating the applicability of this measure in the complex health context, and elucidating how citizens’ health privacy concerns reduce trust and heighten risk perceptions associated with health technology vendors.