NC Site Links Health Resources
Reprinted by permission of The News & Observer of Raleigh, North Carolina.
Jonathan B. Cox, The News & Observer.
4/9/2003
CHAPEL HILL -- Next time you're sick, forget the phone book. The Internet could be the best way to find local doctors, specialists and support groups for what ails you.
A North Carolina Web site started in January, www.nchealthinfo.org, has compiled a list of health services available in each of the state's 100 counties, covering topics from allergies to yoga. It's linked to a national information database to help educate people on 600 diseases and conditions.
"We're getting used to the idea of turning to the Internet to find a restaurant or a movie, but we're not so used to looking at the Internet for health services," said Christie C. Silbajoris, director of the N.C. Health Info project, which runs the Web site from UNC-Chapel Hill. "The fact is there are some really good sites out there."
At the end of last year, 73 million Americans had used the Internet to find health information, a 59 percent increase from March 2000, according to a recent telephone survey of 2,092 adults for the Pew Internet & American Life Project in Washington.
And the Web likely will become a more important tool as consumers, faced with rising health costs, take more responsibility for their care. The next time they need medical information, about a third of all Americans and 46 percent of Internet users will turn to the Web first, Pew found.
The idea for nchealthinfo.org was born in 2000 when Carol Jenkins, director of the UNC-Chapel Hill Health Sciences Library, and Joanne Gard Marshall, dean of UNC's School of Information and Library Science, decided that available health data should be more useful.
They wanted to marry Medline Plus, an information service provided by the National Library of Medicine, with local health services so people could easily find resources such as doctors and support groups familiar with their conditions.
After a year of study and a year of cyber-construction, the site went online in January. It links to more than 1,700 Web sites for health services in the state.
"We are by no means complete," Silbajoris said. "And given the proliferation of health services Web sites, we probably never will be."
She and her staff take a liberal approach to the services they post on the site. Silbajoris said they want to give visitors as many options as possible, but are careful to avoid dangerous or misleading information.
Two-thirds of Americans expect to find reliable health information online, according to the Pew study. However, some sites do present false or imprecise data. Silbajoris urges consumers to look for resources from medical schools or government programs and avoid Web sites that seek to sell a product.
The Medline Plus information linked from www.nchealthinfo.org is especially useful, she said, because it has been evaluated by medical professionals.
People can use the site in one of two ways. On the screen's left side, they can search by services available in their counties. On the right, they can look up a particular illness, then see local resources on the topic.
Entering breast cancer and Wake County, for example, returns the phone number and Web addresses for Rex Hospital's Cancer Center, support groups at Duke University and a number of state resources, including the Comprehensive Cancer Center at Wake Forest University's Baptist Medical Center.
The site, which is paid for by the National Library of Medicine to the tune of $350,000 a year, is the first of its kind in the nation and likely will be a model for other states, Silbajoris said.
It's unlikely the National Library of Medicine will support it forever, so the UNC Health Sciences Library is studying whether it can absorb the project.
The service has become a passion for Silbajoris. She was a teacher at St. Stephen's Preschool in Durham until about five years ago when she realized she had learned enough about 4-year-olds. So she went back to school to try something else.
Her parents had died of cancer years earlier and had been frustrated by the lack of information. She was interested in the proliferation of health-related Web sites and chose to pursue a master's in library science. Overseeing the site is now a full-time job.
"We're only at the beginning," Silbajoris said.
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Growing Interest
Consumers are increasingly turning to the Internet to find health information, and they expect to find accurate data. According to a recent survey:
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By last October, 73 million Americans had turned to the Internet to find health-care information. That number is up from 46 million in March 2000.
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Two-thirds of Americans expect reliable health information online. The proportion jumped to 81 percent when frequent Internet users were asked.
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About 31 percent of Americans say they will turn to the Internet first the next time they need medical data.
The study for the Pew project was taken Sept. 9 to Oct. 6, 2002, by Princeton Survey Research Associates. The margin of sampling error is 2 percentage points for the total, and 3 percentage points for Web users.
How to be a Skeptic
UNC's Christie Silbajoris offers these tips for evaluating sites:
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The most credible sites are by universities, medical centers or government sources.
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Make sure the site isn't trying to sell you anything.
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Look for supporting evidence or documentation for online claims.
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Look for timeliness. Most Web sites say when they were last updated.
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