Searching for Credible Health Information Online?: Ask Rachel

In our second self-referential moment of the week, I wanted to point to several posts by OBOS blogger Rachel Walden that are featured in this month’s MedLib’s Round, a monthly blog carnival that highlights some of the best writing on medical librarianship.

From the carnival intro:

A 2008 study by the Center for Medicine in the Public Interest found that searching for health information online can be dangerous, with search engine results pages dominated by websites that appeared legitimate but had zero medical authority [1]. Our hope is that this edition of MedLib’s Round — themed Finding credible health information online— will offer ideas and advice to help people use the Web more effectively to search and find credible health information.

This post, “Tips for Savvy Medical Web Surfing” – A Critique, from Rachel’s own site, Women’s Health News, reviews  a CNN article on how to conduct online medical searches.

Can You Trust That Health Website?, published here, explains how to evaluate the reliability of health information websites. In Understanding Medical Research, also published at OBOB, Rachel offers tips on how to make sense of complex (and sometimes contradictory) studies and what it all means for your health.

Visit Highlight Health for more great selections from this month’s carnival, and congrats to Rachel!