Highlight HEALTH

• One Hand Clapping | Science-based Medicine

  Mark Crislip ponders the meaning of “better” and explores objective and subjective therapeutic responses. A must read!

• Trusted doesn’t mean accurate. Safe is almost certainly stale. | e-patients

  How do you know if you can trust medical information from a website? Did you know the guidelines used to determine "trusted" websites were all conceived between 1995 and 1999, when information available was entirely static (think pre-Health 2.0).

• Does your diet determine what sex your baby will be? | Doctor David’s Blog

  Dr. David discusses an Oxford study suggesting that sex determination may be more complicated than sperm with an X or Y chromosome.

• My take: Just say no to unnecessary tests | Kevin, M.D.

  Kevin believes that excessive testing, combined with demand for the latest diagnostic modalities, play a pivotal role in increasing healthcare costs and suggests we say no to unnecessary tests.

• Healthy, frugal eating | Wise Bread

  Wise Bread describes how to eat and suggests we recreate a tradition of healthy, frugal eating.

Approximately eight million Americans search for health information online every day [1]. However, the information those health seekers are reading may not be very healthy at all. A new study by the Center for Medicine in the Public Interest recently reported that the information prominently displayed in search engine results was not only misleading and confusing, but dangerous for patients [2]. Case in point: using two safe and effective prescription medications (Crestor and Avandia) as an example, nearly 65% of the first three pages of Google search results came from sites that were biased or contained unverified information. Add to this the fact that most search engine users click on a result within the first three pages of search results [3] and people searching for health information online are likely to be viewing websites that aren’t credible or trustworthy.

At Highlight HEALTH 2.0, guest writer Matthew Krajewski focuses on the importance of information categorization and online health search. In his article Health Web 1.0, 2.0 and 3.0, Matthew discusses health search in the context of internet technology trends. His article echoes the difficulty with search engines today:

Standard search results will require a user to determine for themselves what is a trustworthy source and what is plain spam. RightHealth treats the categorization of health information much like how an editorial health site would treat their articles: insuring results are relevant, trustworthy and of value to the end user.

I wrote about The Trust and Credibility of Healthcare Blogs last year and discussed the Health On the Net (HON) Foundation, a non-profit organization that is attempting to guide the growing community of healthcare providers and consumers on the World Wide Web to sound, reliable medical information and expertise through quality assessment and systematic and stringent peer review. Both Highlight HEALTH and the Highlight HEALTH Web Directory are HONcode accredited.

When searching for health information online, be sure to look for credibility seals, such as accreditation from HON or URAC. Make sure the health information you find is dated and cites references. Ask yourself, does the website link to other sources of credible information? Remember that health information found online is only valuable when that information is correct.

Additional health search resources can be found in theHighlight HEALTH Web Directory.

References

1. Fox S. Online Health Search 2006: Most internet users start at a search engine when looking for health information online. Very few check the source and date of the information they find. Washington (DC): Pew Internet and American Life Project. 2006 Oct 29.
2. Goldberg et al. Insta-Americans: The Empowered (and Imperiled) Health Care Consumer in the Age of Internet Medicine. The Center for Medicine in the Public Interest. 2008 Jan.
3. iProspect Search Engine User Behavior Study. iProspect. 2006 Apr.

The Highlight HEALTH Web Directory is my endeavor to catalog and make available health-related websites I find to be informative and useful. The response thus far has been fantastic. Presently, there are 250 listings in over 40 categories. My thanks to everyone who submitted their blog or website.

For those of you who haven’t listed your website in the Highlight HEALTH Web Directory, here’s 10 reasons why you should:

1. Gain exposure for your website.

   Your website’s visibility increases and its prominence is enhanced when it’s listed in a specific category along with related top-quality sites.



2. Make your website a quality resource for information.

   The Highlight HEALTH Web Directory is human-edited and spam free. Each and every submission, free or paid, is evaluated for content and quality prior to directory inclusion.

3. The directory listing is free.

   All regular listings with a link back to the directory are free cost only $5.00.

4. All bloggers like buttons.

   Once you submit your site, you can add the Highlight HEALTH Web Directory badge to your site:

   

   Simply copy and paste this code wherever you want the button:

   <a href=”http://www.highlighthealth.info/”><img src=”http://www.highlighthealth.info/images/highlighthealth.png” border=”0” alt=”Highlight HEALTH Web Directory” title=”Highlight HEALTH Web Directory” /></a>

5. Receive an incoming link to your website from a trusted, reputable source.

   The Highlight HEALTH Web Directory complies with the HONcode standard for trustworthy health information. The mission of the Highlight HEALTH Web Directory is to compile a select, quality database of online health resources that is free for everyone to use.

6. Free advertising.

   Every day, two random links and their descriptions from the directory are featured on the homepage.

7. Increase website traffic.

   Who doesn’t want more visitors? A link to your site from the Highlight HEALTH Web Directory can help with traffic. Importantly, it’s targeted traffic, meaning the reader is already interested in what you’re writing about when they click on your link.

8. Improve your website’s search engine rankings.

   The Highlight HEALTH Web Directory offers regular and featured listings that don’t require a reciprocal link. These one-way links are beneficial from a search engine optimization (SEO) aspect and are important, especially for niche sites such as health and medicine. Search engines give importance to the number of links pointing to your site when ranking it for position during search. The better your ranking, the higher up your website appears on the search engine results page (SERP).

9. Get your website indexed by search engines.

   Search engines like Google, Yahoo! and MSN use crawlers or spiders to search the web for new sites. If you want search engines to find your site, there couldn’t be an easier way than having them find your site through a listing in the Highlight HEALTH Web Directory.

10. Contribute to the conversation.

    Be part of a larger community discussing health and medicine by listing your website with the Highlight HEALTH Web Directory.

List your site in the Highlight HEALTH Web Directory today!