Living in the library world: Health sciences (Medicine)

Basic medical sciences attempt to discover and describe how human body functions. Include:

Textbooks become reference books
Practitioners heavy users of handbooks
Use of handbooks especially heavy in pharmacology
Huge increase in popular medical literature
Growth in area of alternative medicine
The focus of traditional medical informatics is shifting from health professionals to consumers

Eysenbach, G. Consumer health informatics. BMJ 2000; 320: 1713-1716 http://www.bmj.com/content/320/7251/1713

Health information seeking studies

55% of U.S. Internet users search for health info
91% physical illness
26% mental illness
Rely on search engines
58% reported checking for company or organization providing info (likely some college)
Users with high school or less unlikely to check Web site’s source info

Taylor (2001) http://media.theharrispoll.com/documents/Harris-Interactive-Poll-Research-Cyberchondriacs-Update-2002-05.pdf

80% of all adults who are online (i.e. 53% of all adults) sometimes use the Internet to look for health care information. However, only 18% say they do this “often”, while most do so “sometimes” (35%), or “hardly ever” (27%)
This 80% of all those online amounts to 110 million cyberchrondriacs nationwide. This compares with 54 million in 1998, 69 million in 1999 and 97 million last year.
On average those who ever look for health care information online do so three times every month
A slender majority (53%) of those who look for health care information does so using a portal or search engine which allows them to search for the health information they want across many different websites. About a quarter (26%) go directly to a site that focuses only on health-related topics and one in eight (12%) goes first to a general site that focuses on many topics that may have a section on health issues.

G. Eysenbach and C. Kohler. How do consumers search for and appraise health information on the world wide web? Qualitative study using focus groups, usability tests, and in-depth interviews. BMJ, March 9, 2002; 324 (7337): 573-577. http://bmj.com/cgi/content/full/324/7337/573

Users of the Internet explore only the first few links on general search engines when seeking health information
Consumers say that when assessing the credibility of a site they primarily look for the source, a professional design, and a variety of other criteria
In practice, internet users do not check the “about us” sections of websites, try to find out who authors or creators of owners of the site are, or read disclaimers or disclosure statements
Very few internet users later remember from which websites they retrieved information from or who stood behind the sites

Fox and Fallows (2003). http://www.pewinternet.org/Reports/2003/Internet-Health-Resources.aspx

Half of American adults have searched online for health information
Go online for information, prepare for appointments and surgery, share information, seek and provide support
Women primary consumers of online health information

Fox and Rainie (2002) . http://www.pewinternet.org/Reports/2002/Vital-Decisions-A-Pew-Internet-Health-Report.aspx

Consumer health information
National Library of Medicine reports:

Health information in top 5-10 topics of interest
2/3 of libraries estimate that health requests account for up to 20% of reference requests
When MEDLINE made freely available on the Internet usage increased from 7 to 220 million searches per year (estimated that 1/3 of searches by public)

MEDLINEplus most frequent requested health topics, November 1999

Canadian Health Network (CHN)

National, bilingual Internet-based health information service
Developed in partnership with Health Canada
Network of health information networks (over 600 health information providers contribute resources)
Gathers and organizes quality information

Consumer Health Information Service (CHIS)

Consumer & patient health information service https://web.archive.org/web/20050207083021/http://www.umanitoba.ca/libraries/units/health/reference/chis.shtml
To help Manitobans learn more about health and medical topics, the Neil John Maclean Health Sciences Library offers the Consumer and Patient Health Information Service. This service provides information on health and medical topics such as:

Abstracts and indexes

covers English language nursing journals
cardiopulmonary technology; medical/laboratory technology; medical records; occupational therapy; physical therapy/rehabilitation; radiologic technology; respiratory therapy; social service in health care

Living in the library world