The Relation of Social Networks and Health Service Demand

Amid increasing interest in how social relationships play an important role in health and health behavior, it remains unclear whether social interaction benefits health literacy and in turn affects individuals’ healthcare consumption. More specifically, this article proposes a research hypothesis to address the question: Do individuals who are strongly tied to other individuals within the social networks become more health conscious or literate and hence use more health services? This paper extends prior research on social support, health literacy and healthcare utilization to investigate the relation between social interaction and health service demand. Using OLS, IV, and median regressions, the paper provides strong empirical evidence that people who actively helped their friends and relatives look for health information from a variety of sources including other friends in their social connections made more visits to hospitals, ERs, and doctor clinics. It also finds that people of younger age, male gender, having higher income, being married, white race, having longer working hours, owning a business, having more years of education, and having no insurance coverage tend to avoid seeking health services.