AllCare Behavioral Health Services, Inc.

MedlinePlus: Consumer Health

Search MedlinePlus

MedlinePlus is a consumer health website that brings together authoritative information from the National Library of Medicine (NLM), the National Institutes of Health (NIH), and other government agencies and health-related organizations. Besides a keyword search, preformulated MEDLINE searches are included in MedlinePlus and give easy access to medical journal articles. MedlinePlus also has extensive information about drugs, an illustrated medical encyclopedia, interactive patient tutorials, and latest health news. MedlinePlus is free of charge to all users worldwide and is funded by the citizens of the United States of America.

A note on searching:
It is important to properly evaluate consumer health websites while you search for information. There are many sites that offer inaccurate, biased, or out of date information. The left sidebar of this page has some tips for evaluating sites that will assist you in filtering out misleading sites from the good ones. If you are not able to locate these pieces of information very quickly, then be cautious of the site. AllCare recognizes MedlinePlus as the best source of unbiased health information on the web today.

Freementalhealth.com Selected Topics

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Tips for Evaluating Consumer Health Sites

• Authority
• See if you can determine the author of the information provided. Contact information should be available so that one could verify the author's identity and affilitation. Look for sites that you recognize such as major universities, government agencies, and major non-profit organizations.
• Timeliness/Currency
• There should always be a notation on a webpage denoting when it was last updated. Out of date information can be harmful. See that you have current information.
• Bias
• Be extremely wary of commercial sites that offer health information. While the information may be accurate, there is always the possibility that the information can be biased in some way. See if the site is trying to sell you something or sway your opinion based upon your emotional response to the content.
• Coverage
• Be able to quickly identify the scope of the website and the information it is providing. The coverage of a site will often dictate the level of detail that is available in the content.
• Privacy
• Read over the privacy statement for a site to insure that your health information and search for answers regarding your health remain private.

Copyright © 2005   AllCare Behavioral Health Services, Inc. PO Box 17000 Encino, CA 91416-7000   (818) 881-5198    info@allcare.net
Last updated: Tue, Dec 20 2005 01:37:00 pm pst