Abstract
Older adults have been shown to engage more with untrustworthy online content, but most digital trace research has focused on political misinformation. In contrast, studies of health misinformation have largely relied on self-reported survey measures. Using linked survey and digital trace data from a national US sample (nā=ā1,059), we examine exposure to low-credibility health content across websites and YouTube. Here we show that the overall exposure to low-credibility health content is limited but increases with age and is not solely driven by the volume of health-related browsing. Importantly, those who believe inaccurate health claims are more likely to encounter low-credibility content, suggesting that exposure is not merely incidental. While older adults consume less content on YouTube overall, a higher proportion of what they view is from low-credibility sources. Additionally, individuals who consume low-credibility political news are significantly more likely to encounter low-credibility health content. This suggests a shared consumption profile that spans topics and platforms. These results raise new concerns about how online communication environments may potentially shape public health and well-being.
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Data availability
Replication data are available at https://osf.io/nsy87/?view_only=f37575219b56483bba395f45771c94ca.
Code availability
The statistical code to reproduce the results is available at https://osf.io/nsy87/?view_only=f37575219b56483bba395f45774651c94ca.
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Acknowledgements
Financial support for the research reported in this publication was provided by the Huntsman Cancer Foundation and the Cancer Control and Population Sciences Program at the Huntsman Cancer Institute (K.K., A.K., B.L.). The funders had no role in the study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.
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B.L.: conceptualization (lead), data curation (equal), formal analysis (lead), funding acquisition (supporting), methodology (lead), validation (lead), visualization (lead), writing: original draft (lead), writing: review and editing (equal). A.J.K.: data curation (supporting), funding acquisition (lead), methodology (equal), project administration (lead), writing, review and editing (supporting). R.L.B.: data curation (equal), formal analysis (supporting), methodology (supporting), validation (supporting). K.A.K.: conceptualization (supporting), funding acquisition (equal), methodology (supporting), writing: review and editing (supporting).
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Nature Aging thanks David Lazer, Peter (J.) Loewen, Sander van der Linden, Yuan Wang, and the other, anonymous, reviewer(s) for their contribution to the peer review of this work.
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Supplementary Note, Figs. 1ā11 and Tables 1ā56, populated pre-analysis plan.
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Lyons, B., King, A.J., Barter, R.L. et al. Exposure to low-credibility online health content is limited and is concentrated among older adults. Nat Aging (2026). https://doi.org/10.1038/s43587-025-01059-x
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s43587-025-01059-x
