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Collections under which this article appears: Medical informatics: World Wide Web Information in Practice (journal section) Journalology: Other Journalology |
Paul Kim a Health Communication and Telehealth, Office of
Disease Prevention and Health Promotion, US Department of Health and
Human Services, Washington DC, USA, b National Institute for
Occupational Safety and Health, Centers for Disease Control and
Prevention, Washington DC
Correspondence to: Dr Eng [log in to unmask]
Objective:
To review published criteria for
specifically evaluating health related information on the world wide
web, and to identify areas of consensus.
Design:
Search of world wide web sites and peer
reviewed medical journals for explicit criteria for evaluating health
related information on the web, using Medline and Lexis-Nexis
databases, and the following internet search engines: Yahoo!, Excite,
Altavista, Webcrawler, HotBot, Infoseek, Magellan Internet Guide, and
Lycos. Criteria were extracted and grouped into categories.
Results:
29 published rating tools and journal
articles were identified that had explicit criteria for assessing
health related web sites. Of the 165 criteria extracted from these
tools and articles, 132 (80%) were grouped under one of 12 specific categories and 33 (20%) were grouped as miscellaneous because they
lacked specificity or were unique. The most frequently cited criteria
were those dealing with content, design and aesthetics of site,
disclosure of authors, sponsors, or developers, currency of information
(includes frequency of update, freshness, maintenance of site),
authority of source, ease of use, and accessibility and availability.
Conclusions:
Results suggest that many authors agree
on key criteria for evaluating health related web sites, and that efforts to develop consensus criteria may be helpful. The next step is
to identify and assess a clear, simple set of consensus criteria that
the general public can understand and use.
Key messages
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