The Internet influence on the academic-scientific public health community

Authors

  • Angela Maria Belloni Cuenca Universidade de São Paulo; Faculdade de Saúde Pública; Departamento de Saúde Materno-Infantil
  • Ana Cristina d'Andretta Tanaka Universidade de São Paulo; Faculdade de Saúde Pública; Departamento de Saúde Materno-Infantil

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.1590/S0034-89102005000500021

Keywords:

Public health, Research personnel, Faculty, Computer communication networks, Universities, Internet, Electronic mail

Abstract

OBJECTIVE: To investigate the influence of the Internet on the academic-scientific activities of the Brazilian public health community. METHODS: This was a descriptive study, centered on the opinions of 237 teachers connected with Brazilian postgraduate programs in public health, at master's and doctoral levels, in 2001. Data were collected by means of a self-administered questionnaire via the Internet and traditional mail. The statistical analysis was done by means of proportions, means and standard deviations. RESULTS: The vast majority of the population (225; 94.9%) said that they used the Internet. Electronic mail (92%) and the web (55.6%) were the resources in greatest daily use. The Internet had significant influence (73.8%) on communications between the teachers, especially for developing collaborative research. The teachers who did not use the Internet (5.1%) gave the reasons that they lacked motivation and time and that it was easy to obtain the material they needed from their colleagues. CONCLUSIONS: The results showed that the Internet has had an influence on the teachers' work and has been affecting the cycle of scientific communication, particularly due to the high speed with which information can be retrieved. There was a tendency to single out communication between the teachers as the feature that has changed most since the coming of the Internet to the Brazilian academic-scientific world.

Published

2005-10-01

Issue

Section

Original Articles

How to Cite

The Internet influence on the academic-scientific public health community . (2005). Revista De Saúde Pública, 39(5), 840-846. https://doi.org/10.1590/S0034-89102005000500021