Exploring Factors Affecting Users’ Willingness To Disclose Private Information In Mobile Health Applications

As China enters the post-epidemic era,residents’ demand for health services has taken on new characteristics.While satisfying basic health services,the demand for high-quality,diversified and personalized health services is also rising.Under the influence of the advancement of Internet technology,specially by large-scale application of big data technology,mobile health APP has become a powerful tool for residents to manage their own health.However,the inadequacy of laws and regulations,loopholes in supervision and the profit-seeking nature of enterprises pose a serious threat to the security of users’ personal information and bring obstacles to the development of the enterprises themselves.Therefore,the study of willingness to disclose health privacy information is becoming a hot topic of widespread interest among scholars.On the one hand,the study focused more on online health communities and ignored mobile health APPs with large audiences;on the other hand,existing studies mainly explored which factors affect the willingness to disclose health privacy information from various theoretical perspectives,without in-depth analysis of which factors are necessary or considering how the combination of different factors affects the direction and extent of willingness to disclose.Based on privacy computing and other related theories,this study constructs a configuration model of factors influencing the willingness of mobile health APP users to disclose health privacy information from the user’s own dimension,mobile health APP dimension,social influence dimension and privacy computing dimension.First,241 valid questionnaires were collected through questionnaire research,and the scale was tested for reliability with the help of SPSS and Amos software.Then,by correlation test analysis,the results indicate that the relationship between variables under different dimensions and willingness to disclose health privacy information may be nonlinear.The necessity conditions and group paths were explored through the combination of NCA and fs QCA,and four group paths affecting willingness to disclose health privacy information were summarized,namely,risk averse,trade-off between pros and cons,privacy concerned,and risk sensitive.This study finds that mobile health app users in the survey sample are characterized by a "privacy paradox",a pronounced sense of loss of control over private information,a general experience of privacy information disclosure,and a strong tendency toward collectivism.Necessity analysis finds that no one factor is necessary for willingness to disclose,but privacy policies,perceived benefits,and perceived risks play a more general role in generating high willingness to disclose health privacy.The grouping analysis reveals that the trade-off between perceived risk and perceived benefit influences the direction and extent of eventual willingness to disclose,with perceived benefit and risk being influenced by different combinations of factors under different grouping paths for the user’s own,m Health application,and social influence dimensions.This study extends the research scope of privacy calculus theory and uses the method of grouping analysis to provide a reference for the formation mechanism of m Health app users’ privacy disclosure willingness,which helps users,enterprises,government and scholars to think deeply.In addition,there are limitations in this study,mainly the restricted research group,the failure to distinguish situational factors,and the failure to consider disclosure behavior.