Navigating the Health Care System

How to Evaluate Health Information on the Internet

The Internet can be a great resource for those of us seeking information about and support for our health concerns. Through a computer with Internet access, a woman entering menopause can find self-help information; a pregnant lesbian can discuss parenting with other lesbian moms; a woman on welfare can find organizations that may help her advocate for the assistance she needs; and a woman with heart disease can research the latest medical treatments.

But while the amount of material available on the Internet is vast, the quality of the information varies greatly. When you visit a website, it’s important to consider the source of the information and to view critically any material you find. Remember that anyone can create a site and put up any content he or she wants. Some sites push dubious medicine, both conventional and alternative; some are concerned only with selling you their products; and some sites (as well as research studies) are biased by the drug companies, professional societies, and other advertisers who support them. (For more information on how drug companies influence medical research, see Can We Trust the Evidence in Evidence-based Medicine?)

Separating questionable or misleading information from accurate and reliable material can sometimes be daunting. Below are some questions to ask yourself to help evaluate the quality of online health information.

• Who developed and maintains the site? Any good health-related site should make it easy for you to learn who is responsible for the site and its content. One way to tell is to look at the site’s URL (which is usually listed in a box labeled “address” near the top part of your screen): the name or initials of the organization are often part of the URL, as is a two- or three-letter “root domain” designation that tells you the nature of the organization. Some common designations are “edu” for educational institution, “org” for nonprofit organization, “gov” for government agency, “com” for commercial company, “net” for network, “ca” for Canada, and “uk” for Great Britain. For example, by looking at the URL www.cdc.gov, you can figure out that you are at a site created by a government agency (gov) whose initials are probably cdc (they are: the Centers for Disease Control).
  
  To find additional information about who runs the site, look for a link that says “Who We Are” or “About…” If there is no information available about who owns the site or develops the content, be wary.
  
  
• Who pays for the site? It costs money to run a website. Although some sites are labors of love, most have outside sources of funding, and this should be clearly presented on the site. How does the site pay for its existence? Does it sell advertising? Does it sell products or services? Is it sponsored by a drug company? Is it funded through grants or donations? The source of funding can affect what content is presented, how the content is presented, and what the site owners want to accomplish on the site. For example, drug-company-sponsored information tends to downgrade or ignore nonmedical or nonpharmacological approaches, and is slow to present innovative alternatives or preventive treatments. Try to figure out if the author(s) or site owner(s) have a financial interest or anything else to gain from proposing one particular point of view over another.
  
  
• Who is the author of the particular material you’re reading? The authors and contributors of all content should be clearly identified. Often information posted is collected from other websites or from offline sources. If the person or organization in charge of the site did not create the information, the original source should be clearly labeled.
  
  
• What is the basis of the information on the site? In addition to the authorship of the material you are reading, the evidence that material is based on should be provided. Medical facts and figures should have references, and opinions or advice should be clearly labeled as such and set apart from information that is evidence-based (that is, based on research results).
  
  
• When was the material written or compiled? All content should have a date on it, so you can tell when the material was written, when it was posted, and when it was last revised.
  
  
• Does the information sound too good to be true? Be wary of “cures” for incurable diseases. Question sites that credit themselves as the sole source of information on a topic as well as sites that disparage other sources of knowledge.
  
  
• Does the site ask you for personal information? If so, read its privacy statement to find out if your information will be shared by others without your permission.
  
  
• Is there a way to contact the site? There should be a way for you to contact the site owners with problems, feedback, and questions, and someone should respond to your messages in a timely way. If the site hosts chat rooms or other online discussion areas, it should tell visitors what the terms of using this service are. If a site is moderated, you should be able to find out who the moderator is and how he or she was chosen.
  
  

Excerpted from Our Bodies, Ourselves: A New Edition for a New Era, Copyright © 2005, Boston Women's Health Book Collective.