Consumer Health Guide   Tags: consumer_health, medicine, public, reference  

How do we know whether a particular drug, therapy or operation really works, and how well? How reliable is the evidence? Are clinical trials truly unbiased?

This book aims to help you become more informed about your health care and health decisions. It will equip you with some simple tools for distinguishing between reliable and unreliable health advice.

How to see through the hype in medical news, ads, and public service announcements.

Site is managed by The Office of the Patient Advocate (OPA) is an independent office in California state government charged with informing and educating consumers about their rights and responsibilities.

Site is a section of the Medical Library Association’s Web site. This section provides a listing of 100 consumer health related Web sites that have been evaluated and found to be of significant quality.

American Academy of Family Physicians (AAFP), a national medical organization produces this site. Health information for the entire family is provided. All information is written and reviewed by physicians and patient education professionals.

Site is run by the Hardin Library for the Health Sciences, University of Iowa. Hardin MD features one of the most complete and frequently cited lists for health related subjects. A link to medical pictures is also provided.

Federal government’s Office of Disease Prevention and Health Promotion maintains this consumer health information site. Visitors to this site will find user-friendly access to fact sheets and answers to frequently-asked health questions.

Healthy People provides science-based, 10-year national objectives for improving the health of all Americans. For 3 decades, Healthy People has established benchmarks and monitored progress over time in order to encourage collaborations across sectors, guide individuals toward making informed health decisions, and measure the impact of prevention activities.

Site provides credible information from the most trusted sources, including Harvard Medical School and Columbia University College of Dental Medicine. InteliHealth’s content includes health news and access to tools and risk assessments.

Provides information on common lab tests, including how the test sample is obtained, what the results mean, and answers to commonly asked questions. A guide to screening tests and select disease information is also provided.

Sections on children's, men's, and women's health topics, as well as specialized sections on topics such as cancer, arthritis, Alzheimer's, and nutrition. Separate search features for topics and drugs are available. Sponsored by the Mayo Clinic.

Site brings together authoritative information from the National Library of Medicine, The National Institutes of Health, along with other government agencies and health-related organizations.

A variety of general health information is provided by the National Institutes of Health’s site. Topics are categorized by subject and can be browsed using quick links or an A-Z guide.

Non-profit consumer health site has been in operation for over ten years and is maintained by medical and health professional faculty at the University of Cincinnati, Case Western Reserve University, and Ohio State University.

Comprehensive site on physical activity information and plans for consumers and health professionals.

“HealthMap brings together data sources to achieve a comprehensive view of the current global state of infectious diseases and their effect on human and animal health. This freely available Web site integrates outbreak data of varying reliability, ranging from news sources (such as Google News) to curated personal accounts (such as ProMED) to validated official alerts (such as World Health Organization).”

“Google Flu Trends uses aggregated Google search data to estimate current flu activity around the world in near real-time.”