Tuesday, April 28, 1998

Sorting through health information in cyberspace

By LAURA MECKLER Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON (AP) - As the government rolls out its updated guide to health information on the Internet, new polling suggests consumers are turning increasingly to cyberspace for guidance about health and medicine.

At the same time, more and more unreliable sites are becoming available on the World Wide Web, making it difficult for consumers to figure out what information has been rigorously tested and what is just conjecture or personal experience, government and private analysts say.

"Trying to get health information from the Internet is like drinking from a firehose, and you don't even know what the source of the water is," said Mary Jo Deering, director of health communication and telehealth for the Department of Health and Human Services.

On Tuesday, HHS will unveil updates to its healthfinder Web site, including new information about how to choose doctors and health plans and how to stay healthy.

Last year, about 15.6 million adults searched for online health information, including 43 percent of all Internet users. That's up from 13.8 million, or 38 percent, in 1996 and is projected to grow to 27.1 million this year, said Michael Brown, who will present these findings at a conference Tuesday.

Yet, doctors are uncomfortable with their patients accessing medical information on their own, Brown said. Some doctors, he explained, don't want to spend time debunking bad information patients find in cyberspace.

Others are simply uncomfortable losing control over the information - good or bad - that their patients receive.

"They see themselves as the primary source of patient education," said Brown, a partner in Interactive Solutions Inc., which develops strategy for the Internet and has done extensive polling on how people use the World Wide Web regarding health data.

Just over 50 percent of doctors surveyed said the Internet was beneficial for their patients, although about 60 percent said the Internet was helpful to them.

"Physicians need to wake up to the fact that their patients are not only online in greater and greater numbers every year, but very proactive and sophisticated," Brown said.

In a companion study, Interactive Solutions examined 160 Web sites dealing with health. In 1996, 53 percent of them were operated by entities generally seen as respected and reliable, such as government agencies, medical centers, medical schools and professional associations.

A year later, just 47 percent of the sites examined were operated by respected organizations, with more and more sites produced by consumers, vendors, manufacturers and unidentified sources on their own.

Consumers became particularly more active on the Web, producing one out of four health sites last year, up from one in 12 in 1996. A prostate cancer patient, for instance, might post information about the treatments he underwent, though there's no way to tell if those treatments are likely to work for someone else.

"It's so easy to publish on the Web now you'll see more consumers do it. They're all well-meaning," though not necessarily accurate, he said.

The government healthfinder site, located on the Internet at www.healthfinder.gov, is meant to help consumers become more involved in their health care. The updated version adds more powerful search engines and more information on the most popular topics including cancer, heart disease, nutrition, diabetes and immunizations.

It also includes a tool for users to calculate their own health risks for diabetes.

The site has seen over 1.7 million visitors since it was launched a year ago.