Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2025-05-01/Recent research

A monthly overview of recent academic research about Wikipedia and other Wikimedia projects, also published as the Wikimedia Research Newsletter.

Reviewed by Clayoquot

How do readers use health information on Wikipedia? A recent paper explores this question using semi-structured interviews with 21 adults from seven countries. All participants had used Wikipedia for health information at least once in the previous year.

The research was qualitative in intent and all participants happened to have at least some post-secondary education, so the results are not necessarily representative of Wikipedia readers as a whole. Nevertheless, it gives a fascinating breadth of results. The whole paper is well worth reading – it's brief, digestible, and probably quite gratifying for Wikipedia volunteers. Some highlights:

• The most common reason for using Wikipedia was simply to "learn more" about a topic. One participant used Wikipedia to understand the relevant anatomy when preparing to have surgery. The participant said, "What all is like wrapped around that gland? That's the kind of information I was looking for and the doctors weren’t really telling me that."
• Several participants reported using Wikipedia for self-advocacy. Before or after visiting a health professional, they read Wikipedia so they can better explain their symptoms or understand what kinds of questions to ask.
• Three quarters of participants expressed "conditional trust" in Wikipedia content, meaning they scroll down to the list of references and decide whether the cited sources are good. Previous research has found that readers click links in references only 0.29% of the time. This paper doesn't contradict the earlier finding. However, it provides evidence that even when readers don't read a cited source, the fact that it was cited might be meaningful to them.