> Fyi,

From a friend at WHO
Bob

>
> >   May 23, 2001 Web Sites Inconsistent on Health, Study Finds By PHILIP J.
> > HILTS A new study has found that most of the time, health information on
> > the Internet is hard to find, hard to read and often incorrect or
> > incomplete, even on the best sites. The study, described in today's
> > Journal of the American Medical Association, is the broadest on the topic
> > to date; it includes detailed questions on four diseases, rates the
> > difficulty of finding information and the site's reading level, and
> > assesses its accuracy and completeness. The study includes
> > Spanish-language sites. "If you are looking for information on breast
> > cancer, for example, and you search the Internet, how easy is it to find a
> > good place for it?" said the study's lead author, Dr. Gretchen K. Berland
> > of the RAND Corporation, the nonprofit research organization that
> > conducted the study. "And if you land on a site, what will you find when
> > you get there?" "For the most part, people will be frustrated, especially
> > if they are among the underserved populations," Dr. Berland said in a
> > telephone interview. The study found that "accessing health information
> > using search engines and simple search terms is not efficient" and that
> > sites did not reliably include important information on health problems.
> > The study was sponsored by a philanthropic group, the California Health
> > Care Foundation, and carried out by researchers affiliated with RAND.  The
> > study showed that government and university sites did better than
> > commercial ones, and it concluded that the Internet had the potential "to
> > be a powerful resource for meeting some of the public's health information
> > needs." But, it went on, "this requires Web sites that present
> > well-organized and accurate information in a way that is understandable."
> > Dr. James D. Metz, editor in chief of the nonprofit Oncolink site that
> > offers information on cancer and scored among the highest of the 25 sites
> > reviewed, said it was difficult to maintain high-quality information on
> > the site. "Our content is totally written by physicians, nurses and social
> > workers in their fields of expertise," Dr. Metz said. "Very few sites do
> > that." "Too many sites are just trying to sell something," he said, "and
> > it is scary how they can make a bad site look good."  The study involved
> > Internet information on breast cancer, childhood asthma, depression and
> > obesity. Using a combined measure of completeness and accuracy, the study
> > found that on 18 English language sites, on average the sites offered
> > complete and correct information on breast cancer 63 percent of the time;
> > on childhood asthma, 36 percent of the time; on depression 44 percent; and
> > on obesity, 37 percent. The study found that consumers face trouble first
> > in just finding sites with substantial information. Only one in five
> > promising links actually turned up pages with substantial content, it
> > said. Researchers found the reading level of the English sites was above
> > the level of a freshman in college, which is higher than average American
> > reading levels. Spanish sites in the study averaged 10th- grade level.
> > But most notable was the study's review of the quality of information
> > offered by health Web sites. The study involved the six top- rated general
> > health sites, and 12 sites dedicated to specific diseases. Expert panels
> > of physicians and patient advocates selected questions that patients often
> > asked on each subject. Then, site searchers were trained to scour each Web
> > site for information on a topic. The searchers were given 90 minutes to
> > two hours, more than three times the amount of time consumers report
> > spending when they look for medical information. Finally, all the
> > information found on each site was collected into notebooks and turned
> > over to a second set of experts, who would score the material for
> > completeness and accuracy.  Completeness was measured by counting how
> > often central questions were covered in some detail. Accuracy was measured
> > by comparing the judgment of several panels of experts with what was found
> > on the site. Even though the study reviewed only top-rated sites,
> > researchers still found that the sites gave complete and accurate
> > information only 45 percent of the time, on average.  On average,
> > reviewers found that Web sites had some information that contradicted
> > other information on the same site and the same topic 53 percent of the
> > time. There was wide variation in whether sources for posted information
> > were given. On average, 65 percent of the sites gave both pieces of source
> > information - authors and a date - but the spread was large, from none to
> > 95 percent across the Web sites. Copyright 2001 The New York Times
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