JERSEY CITY, N.J., Aug. 19 /PRNewswire/ — Nearly half of all Americans suffer from some type of seasonal allergy, according to QualityHealth.com’s seventh HealthOpin survey. QualityHealth.com is a top ranked consumer health Web site and a main competitor to sites like WebMD and Yahoo!Health.
The survey, which polled 10,006 Americans, primarily women, revealed that 45 percent of Americans suffer from seasonal allergies. Of those who have allergies, 41 percent said they were not tested for allergies until they were in their thirties, 22 percent said they were first tested in their twenties, 15 percent their teens and 22 percent during childhood.
Eighty-two (82) percent of survey respondents with seasonal allergies said they spend fewer than 10 minutes with their doctor during an office visit discussing their prescription allergy medication. Fourteen (14) percent said this discussion lasted between 10 and 20 minutes, three percent said 20 to 30 minutes and one percent typically discuss their prescription allergy medication with their doctor for thirty minutes or more per-visit.
“It’s alarming that so few people with seasonal allergies are spending enough time discussing their medications with their doctors during an office visit,” said Peter Burch, marketing and sales SVP for Marketing Technology Solutions, the owner of QualityHealth.com. “A productive visit with the doctor should be a dialogue in which questions are asked and answered. QualityHealth can be a help in this, as it offers a patient education program called Ask Your Doctor where consumers can get information on their condition and guidance on what to ask the doctor, whether it’s about medication, symptoms or anything else. Armed with the right information, patients will be better able to manage their allergies.”
The survey also showed that twenty-eight (28) percent of seasonal allergies sufferers missed work or school this year directly related to being unable to effectively manage their condition. Eighteen (18) percent of respondents said they typically miss one to three days of work or school each year due to allergy symptoms; seven percent said they miss three to five days; three percent said they miss five to seven days, while 72 percent said they miss no work or school due to allergy symptoms.
As the seventh installment in its “HealthOpin” poll series, QualityHealth.com polled its database of registered members between August 6 and August 10, 2008, collecting responses from 10,006 consumers interested in health matters. Survey respondents were 87 percent female and 13 percent male, with the majority between the ages of 35 and 54. The survey’s margin of error is +/- 3 percent.
About Marketing Technology Solutions
Marketing Technology Solutions (MTS) is a media and technology company specializing in servicing health consumers and advertisers through proprietary algorithms that simultaneously personalize health content and target advertising based on a unique healthographic(TM) consumer profile. Healthographics(TM) are a proprietary combination of demographic and (age, gender, address) and consumers physical and emotional health profile. Our healthographic profile has upward of 250 individual data points. MTS specializes in connecting clients’ brands with health-conscious consumers through data-driven patient education, targeted customer acquisition, syndicated research, and permission-based interactive marketing. MTS gains consumer insights through its network of MTS owned Web sites, QualityHealth.com, Healthpages.com and Nubella.com, whose 10 million members rely on the sites for health and wellness news, tips, tools, support groups, and patient education.
According to July 2008 comScore, Inc., the global leader of measurement in the digital world, QualityHealth.com, with approximately 5.8 million unique visitors per month, ranks among the most visited health sites on the Web.
For further information, please contact: For media: For investors: Stephen Gilmore Peter Burch Tel: 212.468.4056 Tel: 732.491.8043 [email protected] [email protected]
Marketing Technology Solutions
CONTACT: media, Stephen Gilmore for Marketing Technology Solutions,+1-212-468-4056, [email protected]; or investors, Peter Burch ofMarketing Technology Solutions, +1-732-491-8043, [email protected]
Web site: http://www.qualityhealth.com/http://www.healthpages.com/http://www.nubella.com/
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