Library Articles and Research
Document Type
Article
Peer Reviewed
1
Publication Date
11-9-2021
Abstract
Online health misinformation is a growing problem, and health information professionals and consumers would benefit from an evaluation of health websites for reliability and trustworthiness. Terms from the Google COVID-19 Search Trends dataset were searched on Google to determine the most frequently appearing consumer health information websites. The quality of the resulting top five websites was evaluated. The top five websites that appeared most frequently were WebMD, Mayo Clinic, Healthline, MedlinePlus, and Medical News Today, respectively. All websites, except Medline Plus, received HONcode certification. Based on DISCERN and CRAAP scores, MedlinePlus was found to be the most reliable health website.
Copyright
Taylor & Francis
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 4.0 License
Recommended Citation
van A. Portillo, Catherine V. Johnson & Scott Y. Johnson (2021) Quality Evaluation of Consumer Health Information Websites Found on Google Using DISCERN, CRAAP, and HONcode, Medical Reference Services Quarterly, 40:4, 396-407, https://doi.org/10.1080/02763869.2021.1987799
Included in
Health Communication Commons, Health Sciences and Medical Librarianship Commons, Information Literacy Commons, Other Medicine and Health Sciences Commons
Comments
This is an Accepted Manuscript of an article published in Medical Reference Services Quarterly, volume 40, issue 4, in 2021, available online at https://doi.org/10.1080/02763869.2021.1987799. It may differ slightly from the final version of record.
The Creative Commons license below applies only to this version of the article.
This scholarship is part of the Chapman University COVID-19 Archives.