Trusting Your Internet Health Searches

The Internet can be a gold mine for health information seekers, but separating the helpful and accurate from the inaccurate and downright dangerous can be a daunting task. Here’s what you’re looking for: information that’s based on scientific evidence, information that comes from an unbiased source (in other words, maybe it’s not a good idea to get arthritis advice from the makers of a new pill promising a 3-day cure for arthritis), information that is regularly updated, and information that has been vetted by a neutral third party. Sounds like a lot to look for, but the resources below can point you in the right directions.

The National Institutes of Health’s MedlinePlus site has a guide to “healthy” Websurfing.
www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/healthywebsurfing.html

The Information Therapy for Consumers Web site has general advice about finding evidence-based medical information on the Internet.
www.ixcenter.org/consumers

The Medical Library Association offers advice on evaluating health Web sites, and recommends top ten Websites for cancer, diabetes and heart disease information.
www.mlanet.org/resources/userguide.html

CAPHIS, a section of the MLA, also maintains a regularly updated Top 100 list of best health Websites.
http://caphis.mlanet.org/consumer/index.html

Judge: Web Sites for Health, a United Kingdom site, has guides to searching the Internet for health information, evaluating the accuracy of health web sites and how to use your search information most effectively with your doctor.
www.judgehealth.org.uk/consumer_guidelines.htm

The National Cancer Institute’s fact sheet about evaluating health information on the Internet offers tips for determining whether a Web site is potentially biased, unreliable, or out of date.
www.cancer.gov/cancertopics/factsheet/Information/internet

Health Compass, a site from the American Federation for Aging Research and the Merck Institute of Aging and Health, can help older people navigate the Internet for health information.
www.healthcompass.org

Forbes and Consumer Reports magazines both have “Best of the Web” lists for top health pages, based on the accuracy, timeliness and usefulness of the pages’ content.
www.forbes.com/bow/b2c/section.jhtml?id=9
www.healthratings.org

The Health on the Net Foundation has created a code of conduct (HONcode) that spells out rules for maintaining reliable and credible health information Web sites. Sites that abide by these rules can receive a HONcode seal of approval.
www.hon.ch/HONcode