If you find yourself wondering if the medical information you’re finding on the web is trustworthy and reliable, look for the Health on the net (HON) certification. HON is a non-profit group based in Geneva, and is one of the first sites designed to guide both patients and doctors to reliable health information on the web.
HON-certified sites undergo a rigorous review to assure they meet the 8 standards set by HON for trustworthy medical information.
1. Authoritative: Any medical or health advice provided and hosted on this site will only be given by medically trained and qualified professionals unless a clear statement is made that a piece of advice offered is from a non-medically qualified individual or organisation.
2. Complementarity: The information provided on this site is designed to support, not replace, the relationship that exists between a patient/site visitor and his/her existing physician.
3. Privacy; Confidentiality of data relating to individual patients and visitors to a medical/health Web site, including their identity, is respected by this Web site. The Web site owners undertake to honour or exceed the legal requirements of medical/health information privacy that apply in the country and state where the Web site and mirror sites are located.
4. Attribution: Where appropriate, information contained on this site will be supported by clear references to source data and, where possible, have specific HTML links to that data. The date when a clinical page was last modified will be clearly displayed (e.g. at the bottom of the page).
5. Justifiability: Any claims relating to the benefits/performance of a specific treatment, commercial product or service will be supported by appropriate, balanced evidence in the manner outlined above in Principle 4.
6. Transparency: The designers of this Web site will seek to provide information in the clearest possible manner and provide contact addresses for visitors that seek further information or support. The Webmaster will display his/her E-mail address clearly throughout the Web site.
7. Financial disclosure : support for this Web site will be clearly identified, including the identities of commercial and non-commercial organisations that have contributed funding, services or material for the site.
8. Advertising policy: If advertising is a source of funding it will be clearly stated. A brief description of the advertising policy adopted by the Web site owners will be displayed on the site. Advertising and other promotional material will be presented to viewers in a manner and context that facilitates differentiation between it and the original material created by the institution operating the site.
I’m proud to display my HON certificate in my sidebar, and encourage you to look for it in the sites you visit for medical information. But be careful – A lot of quackery sites may simply use the HON image and falsely claim they meet the standards. That’s why HON certificate displayed should always includes a verification link back to HON. And there are a lot of great sites out there that have not applied for HON, so its absence is not necessarily a bad thing.
I must admit that I am a bit disappointed to see that HON has certified Drugwatch.com – an ambulance chasing site put up by a bunch of lawyers looking to find clients to sue Pharma. Drugwatch shows up on the front page of almost any search for the drugs for which they are searching for litigants – Yaz, Accutane and the SSRI’s are frequent targets. I wish HON would take another look at that certification.
How to Use HON to Limit Internet Searches to Trustworthy Sites
Google is getting much, much better at preferentially displaying quality info sites at the top of medical searches, and distinguishing ads from real content. They came up with some great finds on the first page of searches I did for major terms such as HPV, herpes and Menopause. But if you have concerns about what you are seeing in a search, you can use the HON tools to focus your results within HOn certified sites – and without ads.
HON Plugin – If you find yourself spending a lot of time separating the real info from the crap when it comes to medical info on the web, consider downloading the HON Plugin so your search results will display the HON certificate right in your search results.
HON Site Search – If you don’t want to use the toolbar, you can search directly from the HON site
HON Select – You can also use HON Select to conduct searches for medical information from MeSH® terms, authoritative scientific articles, healthcare news, Web sites and multimedia – all in one search.
Try a HON search for yourself and see what you get
Congratulations!!