Health information is made available on the Internet by consumer activists, educational institutions, medical professionals (and health related businesses) and governments. The Internet now contains more than 10,000 sites offering health and medical information, and more are going online every day. How do you judge the quality of the health information you find on the Interent ? What are the best search engines for finding health information? What is the fastest way to search for magazine and journal articles ? The librarians at Union County College Libraries have complied a selection of Web links specifically to help students and faculty in their research for health and medical information at UCC .
American Academy of Pediatrics developed this World Wide Web site containing health and safety information for parents and caregivers of infants, children, and teens. You can search the database of AAP articles.
Consumer Health Resources provides information about professional organizations, government agencies, and consumer/self help groups, and it has links to other useful information.
HealthFinder provides links to hundreds of federal government publications about health topics. It also links to hundreds of consumer health sites which have been evaluated for quality by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
HealthWeb provides links to World Wide Web sources evaluated and selected by librarians and health information professionals who chose sites they thought most helpful to health care professionals and consumers.
Mayo Health O@sis, which is operated by the Mayo Clinic, provides thousands of articles covering a very wide range of medical topics. Widely considered one of the premier medical sites on the Internet, it is particularly strong in the subjects of diet and nutrition, pregnancy and child health, cancer, heart health, and women's health and medicine.
Medscape offers thousands of full-text articles from various sources, including many from professional medical journals. It also offers several databases created by the National Library of Medicine. (You must register to read all the resources, but registration is free.).
RxList provides detailed information on nearly 300 prescription drugs, including possible side effects and drug interactions, clinical trials, and the cost (if you wish to purchase it from this on-line pharmacy).
U.S. National Library of Medicine, the world's largest medical library, is the creator of Medline, a database of references and abstracts from 4300 biomedical journals. A search of Medline, using either PubMed orGrateful Med, can also link you to over 700 journals with full text articles. (Not all are free.) Medline is intended primarily for professionals, but consumers can benefit from the many links to sources of information on specific topics and the MedlinePlus database.