Increasingly, we turn to the Internet when we want more education on just about any aspect of our lives. A common phrase in our house is, “Google knows.” And health information is arguably the most prevalent of all, with new Web sites and tools introduced regularly, allowing you to predict your risk of getting a certain disease… get motivated to eat better, lose weight or exercise more… keep track of your family’s medical history… research symptoms/disease and drugs… and on and on and on. While incredibly helpful, these tools need to be carefully evaluated and used responsibly in conjunction with proper medical care.
“What is so motivational about online tools is the extent to which they can personalize a person’s risk for disease or provide customized advice,” said Carolyn M. Clancy, MD, director of the US Department of Health & Human Services Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ). “The great hope for the future is that we’ll have tools that will customize the best of science for you.” As scientists continue to expand their ability to analyze large volumes of data and distill the most important findings, properly designed online tools can enable individuals to pull out the most important and valid points for themselves. Critical, however, is that the information is from a credible source.
As with all technologies, online health tools can be beneficial but are also vulnerable to misuse or misunderstanding, which in some cases can be dangerous. I spoke with John Robbins, MD, professor in the department of internal medicine at the University of California, Davis, who created a computer model that calculates the five-year risk of hip fracture for postmenopausal woman. Even as the designer of an interactive online tool, Dr. Robbins warns about the inherent limitations. “These tools are all about averages,” he says. Many calculate relative risk, not absolute risk — and even those (like his) that go further are still only predicting risk for the average person with specific risk factors.
Use online interactive tools as a starting point, not the end point, he suggests. “They can help you think and plan,” says Dr. Robbins, adding “they do not give definitive answers… they help to ask questions. They can be used to learn about possible problems and possible solutions.”
Dr. Clancy agrees, pointing out that interactive tools are useful in organizing information, pinpointing questions and setting goals. “Perhaps they spur people to write down questions ahead of time before they see their doctor,” she says. Clearly though, online tools shouldn’t take the place of expert guidance from a physician who knows you.
Be sure any online tool you utilize comes from a valid source. You can trust that tools posted by US government agencies, such as the National Institutes of Health (NIH) or the National Cancer Institute (NCI), for instance, have undergone an extensive review process before being posted. On the other hand, be aware that Web sites that feature advertisements or product endorsements, have a profit motive in the form of a product or service they are trying to sell.
In fact, be careful about providing information about yourself on a Web site. “People need to be careful anytime they put information about themselves online,” said Dr. Clancy. “If there are no disclaimers that it can’t be tracked to you, it’s conceivable that you will be targeted for marketing.” This is especially true when it comes to pharmaceutical marketing.
Questions to consider when evaluating an online tool:
There’s also a helpful tool for evaluating online tools — The National Library of Medicine offers a 16-minute tutorial on evaluating Internet health information. It provides a step-by-step process to help you decide if the health information on a Web site is credible. Visit http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/webeval/webeval.html.
Some of Dr. Clancy’s often-recommended sites include…
The American Cancer Society (ACS) Web site provides a variety of interactive tools to help you prevent or reduce your chances of getting cancer by making beneficial lifestyle changes. These include:
It is located at http://www.cancer.org/healthy/toolsandcalculators/index.
The US Surgeon General’s Family History Initiative offers “My Family Health Portrait,” a tool to help you organize your family’s health history information to share with physicians or other family members. http://www.hhs.gov/familyhistory/portrait/
Healthfinder.gov is a comprehensive Web site developed by the US Department of Health & Human Services, together with other federal agencies, that provides links to 1,500 health-related Web sites to government and other health-related organizations. http://www.healthfinder.gov
MedlinePlus, from the National Library of Medicine (NLM) and the National Institutes of Health (NIH), provides health information, a medical encyclopedia, and a medical dictionary, as well as access to medical journal articles and health tutorials, and provides links to other health organizations. http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/videosandcooltools.html
Healthcare 411 offers current news and information from the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ). http://healthcare411.ahrq.gov
