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Determining the credibility of health web-sites

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Fibromyalgia
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Posted 12/5/2015 3:58 PM (GMT 0)
A little primer of determining whether or not a website is credible,always a benefit when searching for medical information.

http://mason.gmu.edu/~montecin/web-eval-sites.htm

Good all-purpose explanation of evaluating website credibility. Search Engines return info based on popularity not accuracy. Business sites will have web monitors who manipulate search engine results to benefit their employer.

One good hint is last three letters of the web address.

.gov, .edu, .org are usually credible sites, consisting of government, university, or official associations.

.com is a commercial site, associated with businesses or individuals. The information is only as good as it's host.

.net can be the tricky one. It might or might not be credible. I generally give .net a pass.

Look at the author of the site. Professional or business? Opinion or fact? Official association or special interest groups. If the site sells something, is maintained by a special interest group, or features the work of individuals, treat it with caution.

For instance--healingwell.com is a special interest group. The information presented here is an amalgam from different authors and THE POSTINGS ARE NOT EVALUATED FOR FACTUAL INFORMATION. Moderators use their own understanding of the situation to delete or allow a posting, and base decisions on common rules of order. But anyone can post.

Here is a good starting point for finding reputable medical sites. CAPHIS, the Consumer and Patient Health Information Section, is a section of the Medical Library Association, an association of health information professionals with more than 5,000 individual and institution members. MLA fosters excellence in the professional achievement and leadership of health sciences library and information professionals to enhance the quality of health care, education, and research.

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

This site gives you several lists of reputable sites under different topics.
Posted 12/5/2015 4:18 PM (GMT 0)
I wanted to post about this because I overheard two ladies chatting at the gym yesterday. They were talking about cancer, and this ad for Cancer Centers of America came on the tv. They decided that the Cancer Center would be a good place to go, if, deity forfend, they or their family were diagnosed with cancer.

The Cancer Center of America is a for-profit organization. The web address is www.cancercenter.com/

This is a business site, where the main focus is to create more business for the people who run the site. Yes, there are doctors there, but the company is a corporation and it's bottom-line is to make money. Successful treatment is great, because it means that more people will want treatment, and that is more money. I do not mean the organization is bad, because some do get cured.

My sister was treated for cancer at MD Anderson in Houston, associated with University of Texas. www.mdanderson.org/ is the web address, and the national cancer organization is associated with the hospital, which is also one of the premier research centers in this country. Yes, my sister died from leukemia, but this does not mean her treatment was sub-standard. It means that her body created a lethal form of an illness which was so mean that it could not be treated at this point in our medical history.

Brigham and Women's in Boston--http://www.brighamandwomens.org/bwhcancer/default.aspx

The National Cancer Institute--http://www.cancer.gov/about-cancer/treatment

I could go on and on. My point is--with any illness, let your first line of defense be not name-recognition or a friend's recommendation or a flashy ad, but be your own understanding of what a website,a company, a group, any medical organization wants to do. What is their real goal? Three letters can tell you a lot. Some .com and .net sites offer valid information, true,but they almost always have another agenda, based on selling, whether it be products or ideas.

Be well and safe, all.
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