Intentions and Attention in Exploratory Health Search

We study information goals and patterns of attention in exploratory search for health information on the Web, reporting results of a large-scale log-based study. We examine search activity associated with the goal of diagnosing illness from symptoms versus more general information-seeking about health and illness. We decompose exploratory health search into evidence-based and hypothesis-directed information seeking. Evidence-based search centers on the pursuit of details and relevance of signs and symptoms.  Hypothesis-directed search includes the pursuit of content on one or more illnesses, including risk factors, treatments, and therapies for illnesses, and on the discrimination among different diseases under the uncertainty that exists in advance of a confirmed diagnosis. These different goals of exploratory health search are not independent, and transitions can occur between them within or across search sessions. We construct a classifier that identifies medically-related search sessions in log data. Given a set of search sessions flagged as health-related, we show how we can identify different intentions persisting as foci of attention within those sessions. Finally, we discuss how insights about foci dynamics can help us better understand exploratory health search behavior and better support health search on the Web.