As medical writers, we have a good idea of how to separate truth from fiction when it comes to health information on the Internet. Unfortunately, the average consumer does not.
An increasing number of unskilled caregivers – ordinary people caring for their sick spouses or elderly parents – are looking for information about medical conditions, treatments, side effects and alternative therapies. In many cases, the information that they’re finding is not coming from knowledgeable sources, but rather from blogs and Wikipedia articles. Efforts are needed to ensure quality and confidentiality while protecting against fraud and misleading advice.
Established in 1996, the Health on the Net Foundation (HON) is a not-for-profit organization that points health seekers in the right direction.
“HON guides Internet users by highlighting reliable, comprehensible, relevant and trustworthy sources of online health and medical information, tackling the major obstacles of the Web:
• The overwhelming quantity of information
• The uneven quality of health information online”
Health-related Web sites can request a free evaluation for certification and are inspected by the HONcode committee based on a set of 8 guiding principles. A web site must be evaluated annually and is granted the HONcode seal as a trusted information source.
To date, more than 10 million Web pages have been certified in 102 countries and 35 languages. HONcode certified sites are more consistently found to have better and more reliable information than you would find through a common Google search.
For more information about HON and its mission, visit http://www.healthonnet.org.
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