ArticleJAMA network open2024
User Information Sharing and Hospital Website Privacy Policies.
Article in JAMA network open, 2024. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 1 paper.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
1 citing paper in PubMed, 7 citations in OpenAlex.
- Disparities in Internet Medical Service Utilization Among Patients in Post-COVID-19 China: Cross-Sectional Study of Data From Provincial Field and National Online Surveys.Journal of medical Internet research · 2025Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
7 authors at 2 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Importance: Hospital websites frequently use tracking technologies that transfer user information to third parties. It is not known whether hospital websites include privacy policies that disclose relevant details regarding tracking. Objective: To determine whether hospital websites have accessible privacy policies and whether those policies contain key information related to third-party tracking. Design, Setting, and Participants: In this cross-sectional content analysis of website privacy policies of a nationally representative sample of nonfederal acute care hospitals, hospital websites were first measured to determine whether they included tracking technologies that transferred user information to third parties. Hospital website privacy policies were then identified using standardized searches. Policies were assessed for length and readability. Policy content was analyzed using a data abstraction form. Tracking measurement and privacy policy retrieval and analysis took place from November 2023 to January 2024. The prevalence of privacy policy characteristics was analyzed using standard descriptive statistics. Main Outcomes and Measures: The primary study outcome was the availability of a website privacy policy. Secondary outcomes were the length and readability of privacy policies and the inclusion of privacy policy content addressing user information collected by the website, potential uses of user information, third-party recipients of user information, and user rights regarding tracking and information collection. Results: Of 100 hospital websites, 96 (96.0%; 95% CI, 90.1%-98.9%) transferred user information to third parties. Privacy policies were found on 71 websites (71.0%; 95% CI, 61.6%-79.4%). Policies were a mean length of 2527 words (95% CI, 2058-2997 words) and were written at a mean grade level of 13.7 (95% CI, 13.4-14.1). Among 71 privacy policies, 69 (97.2%; 95% CI, 91.4%-99.5%) addressed types of user information automatically collected by the website, 70 (98.6%; 95% CI, 93.8%-99.9%) addressed how collected information would be used, 66 (93.0%; 95% CI, 85.3%-97.5%) addressed categories of third-party recipients of user information, and 40 (56.3%; 95% CI, 44.5%-67.7%) named specific third-party companies or services receiving user information. Conclusions and Relevance: In this cross-sectional study of hospital website privacy policies, a substantial number of hospital websites did not present users with adequate information about the privacy implications of website use, either because they lacked a privacy policy or had a privacy policy that contained limited content about third-party recipients of user information.
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What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.