Mercati per l´informazione sanitaria

Western societies spend more and more on health. In the US alone health spending climbed from 13% of GDP in 1997 to 14.6% in 2002 equaling USD 5267 per capita(OECD 2004). While most is spent directly for diagnosis and treatment of illness, health education and information is becoming more and more popular as a field for inquiry and as a market. "Selling health information", which used to be associated with doctors or pharmacies selling patient data to drug companies for marketing purposes, now denotes a growing media market that has rarely been examined scientifically. From a media perspective, health information is everything from ads, flyers, books and TV shows to the Internet. All this content has to be created, maintained and distributed appropriately. The bills are shouldered by consumers, private companies, and the government. The project aimed at identifying actors on this market and their interests and proposed market segmentation. In addition we identified the demand for regulation and isolated underserved markets offering room for entrepreneurial activities and established players alike.