The web has become a vital source of medical information for more than 52 million
American internet users who hope to make more informed health decisions. According to a recent Wall Street Journal report, approximately 55% of all web users go online to seek health-related information, making the activity more popular than online shopping or searching for sport scores and stock quotes.
1The internet can be a valuable source of health information, but not all sites are equally worthy or reliable. Information on the web may be incomplete, inaccurate, or overly simplified. The web lacks peer review or quality control; many sites are trying to sell a product, and are biased or out of date; and anyone can publish on the web whether they are an expert, or not.
How can you begin searching the web for medical information?
GENERAL WEB SEARCH
If you need information from health associations or written by consumers and patients, current news, social support networks, or information on how to cope with an illness, try your favorite search engine, such as Google (the largest search engine) to navigate the web and find pertinent sites.
G o o g l e http://www.google.com/
American internet users who hope to make more informed health decisions. According to a recent Wall Street Journal report, approximately 55% of all web users go online to seek health-related information, making the activity more popular than online shopping or searching for sport scores and stock quotes.
1The internet can be a valuable source of health information, but not all sites are equally worthy or reliable. Information on the web may be incomplete, inaccurate, or overly simplified. The web lacks peer review or quality control; many sites are trying to sell a product, and are biased or out of date; and anyone can publish on the web whether they are an expert, or not.
How can you begin searching the web for medical information?
GENERAL WEB SEARCH
If you need information from health associations or written by consumers and patients, current news, social support networks, or information on how to cope with an illness, try your favorite search engine, such as Google (the largest search engine) to navigate the web and find pertinent sites.
G o o g l e http://www.google.com/
To search Google:
- Type the subject of your search in the search box.
- Google will automatically include all the words from the search box in the web site.
- Google will recognize phrases and search those terms adjacent to each other.
Remember, no one search engine queries the entire web. If you don’t find what you are looking for with one search engine, try another, such as Alta Vista (http://www.altavista.com/) or FAST (http://www.alltheweb.com/).
LOOKING FOR QUALITY: TIPS FOR USING HEALTH CARE SITES ON THE WEB
Health care consumers using the web should be skeptical in evaluating the information on a web site. First, closely check the uniform resource locator (URL), more commonly known as the web site address.
The address will give a good hint as to the origin of the site.
Also note that URLs including a tilde [ ~ ] could possibly be a personal home page, so be extra-cautious with those. Second, use the Criteria for Evaluating Web Sites checklist to evaluate the credibility of the web site. The same criteria you use to evaluate books and journals also applies to web sites.
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