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Finding online health data difficult
( 2001-05-23 12:01 ) ()

Consumers looking to the Internet for health information better be prepared to weed through scores of marginally related Web pages and do so with a dictionary at their side, according to a study released on Tuesday.

According to the study, published in this week's issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association, less than 25 percent of the first pages linked by a search engine led to relevant information, while most information required a reading level of high school or above -- well above the national average.

The study which quantifies the arduous process of seeking information on the Web also found that consumers who persevere can find accurate health information, though it may not be complete.

The findings were particularly potent in light of recent studies showing that as many as 70 percent of people who use the Internet are looking for health-related information. Based on what they find, researchers said, consumers may determine whether to seek medical advice.

That could be dangerous, said Gretchen Berland of Santa Monica, Calif., a physician with research company RAND Health who was lead author of the study.

"Search engines are only moderately efficient at locating information," she said in a telephone interview.

To arrive at her results, Berland and her team evaluated 10 English-language and four Spanish-language search engines, using a set of common search terms: Breast cancer, childhood asthma, depression and obesity. Researchers also evaluated the quality of content at 25 health Web sites and one search engine.

What they found was that less than a quarter of the first pages of links culled by the search engines led to relevant content. Moreover, less than than half of the topics the researchers believed were important for consumers to know were covered in detail.

DEPTH AND ACCURACY

Specifically, the study found that just 45 percent of the clinical elements researchers deemed critical to a topic on English-language sites were covered in depth and were completely accurate. That number fell to 22 percent on Spanish-language sites.

"What was surprising to us was that some topics were covered better than others," Berland said. "Breast cancer fared better than childhood asthma and obesity. That would be something I would think about when putting out content on my site."

Berland said the findings were particularly alarming for those seeking pertinent health information from Spanish-language Web sites. While the average searcher might encounter 250 pages of material for a topic, she said, a search in Spanish led to just 68 pages of material.

"More than 50 percent of all topics panelists felt were important just weren't covered on Spanish-language sites," she said.

Most of the information researchers did find required an education level well above the national average of eighth grade. For English-language sites, the information was written at the average level of a college sophomore, with some sites written at the graduate school level. On Spanish-language sites, material was written on average at the ninth grade level. "A lot of US residents may have a hard time understanding what is on the Web," Berland said.

For health information Web sites, Berland believes the study points to areas of improvement.

"Our study really is best at pointing out overall patterns at the forest level," she said. "We found there are some spots in the forest that need to be improved."