Startups hoping to disrupt health care, here’s an audience you need to get to know: caregivers.

According to a Pew Internet & American Life Project report released Thursday, caregivers are more likely than other Internet users to look for health information online and take advantage of social tools related to health.

Borrowing tech guru Tim O’Reilly’s phrase, Susannah Fox, associate director of digital strategy for Pew, calls caregivers the “alpha geeks” of social tech in health.

“They are very much in need of help and in need of up-to-the-minute, good quality health information. They are using all the tools at their disposal in new ways to gather and share health information on behalf of themselves and on behalf of the people they love and care for,” she said. “[Caregivers] are creating the tools that they need, just as hackers create the tools that they need.”

Read More