Library : Useful Websites : Consumer Health

Life West provides links to external websites as a service to students who want to diversify their studies.  No endorsement is implied.

 

Evaluating Websites

Evaluating Health Information on the Internet (tutorial)

http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/webeval/webeval.html

MedlinePlus Guide to Health Websurfing

http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/healthywebsurfing.html (English)

http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/spanish/healthywebsurfing.html (Spanish)

Evaluating Health Information on the Internet (National Cancer Institute Factsheet)
http://www.cancer.gov/cancertopics/factsheet/Information/internet

Brief yet detailed discussion of 13 important criteria.  Useful for professionals as well as lay people.

 

Resources for finding recommended Websites for health consumers

CAPHIS.  Top 100 list:  health websites you can trust

http://caphis.mlanet.org/consumer/index.html

Categorizes a limited number of resources that meet the quality criteria for currency, credibility, content, and audience as described on the website of the Consumer and Patient Health Information section of the Medical Library Association.  The General Health section links to many highly recommended sites.  

Complimentary and Alternative Medicine

http://nnlm.gov/outreach/consumer/chcam.html

Definition, classification and websites for various health care modalities.

Finding Health and Wellness @ the Library (PDF, 91 p.)

http://www.library.ca.gov/lds/docs/healthtoolkit.pdf  Guide, published in 2010, recommends hand-picked websites for consumers, including best sites for common conditions such as diabetes and heart disease. 

HealthCare.gov

www.healthcare.gov

Pricing information for thousands of individual and family insurance plans offered by hundreds of carriers from across the country, first posted on the Internet in 2010.

MedlinePlus

http://www.medlineplus.gov

Multilingual information illustrated with images and video. See also MedLinePlus tours in English and Spanish.

PubMed Health

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmedhealth/

Complements MedlinePlus with even more information on diseases, conditions, drugs, treatment options, and healthy living, with a special focus on comparative effectiveness research from institutions around the world. PubMed Health is produced by the National Center for Biotechnology Information, a division of the National Library of Medicine at the National Institutes of Health. It also includes a First Aid and Emergencies section.