Finding Consumer Health Information on the Web Using healthfinder and Medlineplus.

healthfinder

healthfinder is a consumer health information Web site developed by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. The site provides an easy-to-use, searchable index of carefully reviewed, reliable health information from over 1,700 government agencies, nonprofit organizations, and universities.

To access healthfinder:

Start your Web browser and navigate to:
http://www.healthfinder.gov

Click on health library from list on left.

You can browse information by topic or search for specific keywords by entering them in the search box.
To Browse:

Click on your desired category. You will probably be most interested in the prevention & wellness and/or the diseases & conditions sections. Resources are listed alphabetically by topic.
To Search:
Type your search words or phrases into search box and click

The search results are returned in order of relevance to your search terms. (Result items increase in relevancy when your term/s are found in the name of the resource and how frequently terms appear in the resource description.

MEDLINEplus

MEDLINEplus is a consumer health information web site developed by the U.S. National Library of Medicine (world's largest medical library) and the U.S. National Institutes of Health.

MEDLINEplus has extensive information on over 600 diseases and conditions, a medical encyclopedia, a medical dictionary, health information in Spanish, extensive information on prescription and nonprescription drugs, health information from the media, and links to thousands of clinical trials.

To access MEDLINEplus, navigate on the Web to http://medlineplus.gov/ . You will see a list of categories on the left.

The top three categories may be of most help.

Choose a category, then click on the letter your topic starts with. You will see an alphabetical listing of topics within each letter.

Click on a topic.

Results - The results are sorted into different categories. Look for categories such as: Latest News, General Overviews, Specific Conditions, & Treatment. Each result identifies the association or agency responsible for the information.

Click on the title to retrieve the full text of the item.

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In addition to these two health sites, try accessing the main professional organization for your topic. These associations usually have much useful information on their Web sites. For example: American Heart Assn (http://www.americanheart.org), National Sleep Foundation (http://www.sleepfoundation.org/), National Strength & Conditioning Association (http://www.nsca-lift.org/), etc.

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