In order to make educated and wise decisions about healthcare and health products and services, we must be able to get good information. With the Internet, there has never been more freely available information. But not all of that information is correct. Nevertheless, most of us reach for Dr. Google when we have a health question. How can we get the best information out there?
First, you should be skeptical of news pieces about health, especially if it’s something that sounds too good to be true. Read more or listen here – https://www.wnycstudios.org/story/breaking-news-consumers-handbook-health-news-edition.
Second, you can always ask your doctor what source of health information they recommend. Nowadays, many doctor’s offices have a way for you to email your doctor for quick questions and answers, if you don’t have a face-to-face appointment coming up.
Look things up on search engines using these tools.
If you want to quickly see if a website has been reviewed and certified by experts, you can do a custom search here at Health on the Net –
https://www.hon.ch/en/search.html or install a browser extension to see which sites are certified or not
https://www.hon.ch/en/tools.html#honcodeextension.
Finally, consider these questions – who pays for this site? Do they provide evidence, and if so, what kind? How recent is the information? Read more here – https://www.mlanet.org/page/find-good-health-information.
