Internet users searching for health information are likely to encounter web sites selling products or making claims not backed by medical research as reported recently by a team of journalists. Consumers who search for online health information are most likely to access the first few sites listed by a search engine. The content of such sites may not be authentic or very well described.
A team of researchers from the Department of Journalism and Technical Communications, Colorado State University based their findings on an Internet search using five portals: Yahoo, America Online, Microsoft Network, Lycos, and Go. They searched for 24 terms related to heart disease, cancer and weight loss (8 terms per health topic) for a period of one and a half months. They analysed the content of the first 10 sites listed by each of the 5 portals for the different topics for a total of 1,200 web sites.
They found that only 35% of the sites were non-promotional and based on scientific information. About 11% of the sites were based on medical evidence but sold products and 22% of the sites were not based on scientific research and sold products. Nearly 1% were non promotional nonscience based. 31 % search results included personal pages, book catalogue sites or pointed to unavailable sites. Overall, less than 3% of these sites were government-sponsored web sites.
These results raise concerns that Internet users are likely to encounter web sites selling products, usually unsupported by scientific research or objective, science-based medical recommendations. This appears especially true for an issue such as weight loss in which the science is less well developed and the commercial opportunities are more abundant than is the case for heart disease and cancer.
A recent survey in the four countries (US, France, Germany, and Japan) found that the majority of adults in different countries believe that the government should regulate online health information, although a large majority of the users believe that health information on the web is trustworthy and of a good quality.
JAMA, July 2002, Vol. 286 (3)