The Internet is a wonderful thing, but it should not replace the advice of a trained health provider. While the Internet makes it easy to research symptoms, treatments, prevention and general information about a condition, the Internet is unable to accomplish the most important role of your health provider--treating your specific condition. <br />
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Internet search engines might not always turn up the most reputable sites for information. That being said, there are some things to look for when evaluating Internet resources: <br />
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Address. Everything behind the "www" on the Internet is called the URL or address. The address may tell you much about the information on that site. <br />
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~Federal government websites end in ".gov" (e.g., The National Institutes of Health address is www.nih.gov). <br />
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~Some state governments now use ".gov" as well (e.g., The State of Texas is www.texas.gov). Other states may use the "state" plus the abbreviation for the state plus "us" at the end (e.g., in Texas, the Department of State Health Services is www.dshs.state.tx.us). <br />
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~Educational institutions are given an address containing ".edu" (e.g., University of Georgia Cooperation Extension Foods and Nutrition is http://www.fcs.uga.edu/ext/food.php).<br />
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~Non-profit organizations and industry standards may use ".org" (e.g., The American Cancer Society is www.cancer.org). <br />
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~Commercial or for-profit sites use ".com" (e.g., CNN is www.cnn.com). <br />
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While you may be able to find accurate, up-to-date information on many of these sites, federal and state government websites are more likely to have unbiased information, meaning there was probably little or no outside influence on the information posted to that site. Educational institutions are likely to be unbiased as well and, in fact, may derive their information from federal and state sources. Non-profits and industry standards are usually unbiased but may have a particular interest in pushing their agenda or their specific cause. Commercial websites get their funding from advertising and sponsorships and may not be as impartial. <br />
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~Date. Check the date the information was authored and/or last updated/reviewed. Most reputable websites will provide this information somewhere on the page. Information that was last updated in 1992 may not be relevant because of significant advances in medicine. <br />
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~Author. Make sure the author is qualified to write/review the information you are accessing ( i.e., MD, DO, RN, RPh, RD, PhD, etc.). <br />
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~Sponsor. Ford doesn't sell GM products and GM doesn't sell Fords, right? Health information is no different. Check the sponsor of the page and information to make sure that the drug company sponsoring the website isn't skewing you toward its product. <br />
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A good place to start looking for information may be MedLine Plus, a service of the National Library of Medicine and National Institutes of Health: medlineplus.gov. After you've done your research, go see your health care provider and talk to him or her about what you learned. <br />
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For a tutorial on evaluating health information that you find on the Internet, visit www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/webeval/webeval.html. <br />
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<I>Debbie Wilburn is County Agent/Family and Consumer Science Agent with Hall County Cooperative Extension (770)535-8290.</I>
