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Study Finds Web Health Searches Fuel Fears
Everyone likes to search for information about their ailments online. There's always detailed information all kinds of diseases and conditions. There are also online communities filled with people dealing with similar ailments and illnesses. The BBC reports on a study that found some of this online research may feed health fears and breed a "generation of cyberchondriacs." The study surveyed 515 Microsoft employees about their health-related searching.
The researchers found Web searches for common symptoms such as headache and chest pain were just as likely or more likely to lead people to pages describing serious conditions as benign ones, even though the serious illnesses are much more rare.
Searching for "chest pain" or "muscle twitches" returned terrifying results with the same frequency as less serious ailments, even though the chances of having a heart attack or a fatal neurodegenerative condition is far lower than having simple indigestion or muscle strain, for example.
About a third of the 515 Microsoft employees who answered a survey on their medical search habits "escalated" their follow-up searches to explore serious, rarer illnesses.
It seems the study only found the obvious. Sure a search for "chest pain" or even "itchy rash" can send you toward some very serious conditions if you search hard enough. The study is missing the point as to how valuable all this information is that people could not easily get before the Internet. No one is suggesting the Internet replaces your physician. It's important that people have access to all this information so they can conduct their own research and so they can communicate with - and learn from - others suffering from similar conditions and diseases.
Posted on December 5, 2008
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Kids Help Launch Online Health Community
The BBC has an inspirational story about some young kids that started a cancer and health youth community and resource. The kids all either experienced cancer or knew someone who suffered and died from cancer. The site is called Youth Health Talk and it allows people to read about teenagers with illnesses and communicate with their peers about their condition. Vishal Joshi, one of the site's founders, came down with cancer at the age of 14.
The inspiration for the site came from the experiences of a girl with cancer.
She had heard about the Dipex - the Database of Individual Patient Experience - site for adults which colleagues of her father ran, and wanted something similar for people her own age.
Sadly, she died before the site was completed, but staff have dedicated the cancer section to her.
Vishal, now aged 19, from Leicester, said knowing there were other teenagers going through the same problems as him would have made it easier.
"It is a really hard place to be," he explained.
YouthHealthTalk.org also includes video and transcripts of interviews with teens suffering from diseases that young people can read.
Posted on March 30, 2006
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Technorati's New Favorites Feature
Technorati has launched a favorites feature which helps you keep track of up to fifty of your favorite blogs. You can add this blog to your
favorites list by clicking here. More about Technorati's favorites feature can be found here on BloggersBlog.com.
Posted on March 1, 2006
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Nominations Open for 2005 Medical Weblog Awards
Medgadget.com has announced the 2005 Medical Weblog Awards. This is the second year Medgadget has hosted the awards. Nominations will be accepted until Friday, December 30, 2005. The awards will be given in the following categories:
Best Medical Weblog
Best New Medical Weblog (established in 2005)
Best Literary Medical Weblog
Best Clinical Sciences Weblog
Best Health Policies/Ethics Weblog
Best Medical Technologies/Informatics Weblog
Medgadget.com says polls will be open for voting from Tuesday, January 3, 2006 and will close at midnight on Sunday, January 15, 2005 (PST). The award winners will be announced on Wednesday, January 25, 2006. You can nominated your favorite medical blogs in the comments section of this post.
Posted on December 9, 2005
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Healthline Search Engine Launches
Healthline has launched as a health search engine and resource. The search engine provides results from health-related websites only. Here is a list of a few of Healthline's other features.
HealthMaps which enable users to visually explore all of the information related to a disease, drug or condition without the need to repeatedly type new queries into the search box.
A consumer health taxonomy comprised of more than 800,000 medical terms and synonyms
200 topically-focused health channels
Heathline also recently debuted a feature called Flu Central that helps you locate flu clinics by zip code. Flu Central also includes a U.S. map of flu outbreaks. Heathline says Flu Central will also includes news about bird flu.
Designed to provide a one-stop resource for consumer health information related to influenza, Healthline's Flu Central provides up-to-date news and medical articles about the flu - including the H5N1 avian flu virus - and a U.S. flu shot locator to search for the dates, times and locations of more than 25,000 clinics where consumers can get vaccinated.
Posted on October 24, 2005
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Yahoo Launches Blogs by Health Experts
Yahoo has launched several blogs by health experts. The blogs cover topics including allergies, breat cancer, diabetes, nutrition and yoga. Several of the blogs are provided by Johns Hopkins University and written by doctors from the University. Other experts include Deb Levine from Love & Health and Rodney Yee from Rodney Yee Yoga.
Posted on July 20, 2005
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BBC Offers Extensive Cancer Resource
The BBC and Cancer Research UK are providing a cancer resource that provides facts about cancer as well as guides to the different cancers including bowel cancer, breast cancer, lung cancer skin cancer, stomach cancer, etc. The site also includes information about treatments like chemotherapy and radiology. The article says that one in three of us will be diagnosed with cancer during our life. Unfortunately, cancer is a disease that we do not know nearly enough about and that we don't have the best possible treatments for. The good news is that with the Internet consumers have access to more and more information and doctors and health researches can use the web to share research and hopefully come up with new discoveries and better treatments.
Posted on July 8, 2005
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New Health Search Engine Launches
SurfersSurf.com reports that Mamma.com has launched a health search engine called the Deep Health Web Search Engine.
The search engine provides health information in the form of definitions, causes, symptoms, treatments, news and web search results. For example, if you search flu you will get an explanation of the flu, information about flu symptoms and treatments, recent flu news and links to websites about the flu.
Posted on June 29, 2005
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