Exposure to Low-Credibility Health Content Limited but Increases With Age

TUESDAY, Feb. 24, 2026 (HealthDay News) — Exposure to low-credibility health content online is limited, but the likelihood of exposure increases with age and for those who believe inaccurate health claims, according to a study published online Feb. 4 in Nature Aging.

Benjamin Lyons, Ph.D., from the University of Utah in Salt Lake City, and colleagues examined exposure to low-credibility health content across websites and YouTube, using linked survey and digital trace data from a national U.S. sample composed of 1,059 adults.

The researchers found exposure to low-credibility health content was limited overall, but it increased with age and was not only driven by the volume of health-related browsing. The likelihood of encountering low-credibility content was higher for those who believe inaccurate health claims, suggesting that exposure is not just incidental. Overall, older adults consumed less content on YouTube, but a higher proportion of what they viewed was from low-credibility sources. The likelihood of encountering low-credibility health content was significantly higher for those who consumed low-credibility political news, suggesting a shared consumption profile.

“Most people are not visiting these kinds of websites,” Lyons said in a statement. “Visits are pretty rare overall, but the sort of patterns we”ve seen in numerous trace-data studies tend to be replicated here. It”s older adults, in particular, those who consume more right-leaning partisan news. We wouldn”t necessarily hypothesize that from the get-go.”

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