How to Recognize Trustworthy Health Sources

You can trust a health page when you can see who runs it, why it exists and when it was reviewed. You learn here how to check the publisher, author and date, and why official sources come first when reading about medicine.

Who runs the site matters more than how it looks

Health information is easy to find in newspapers, magazines, books, TV, the Internet and social media. Finding reliable health information takes a little effort because some of what you see is up to date and trustworthy, and some is not. That is why you should ask questions before you trust what you read or hear, and discuss what you find with your health care provider before you rely on it. You may have found good information, but your provider can tell you whether it is good for you.

A clean layout does not tell you who stands behind the words. You can usually find most of the answers on the site's About Us page, and if you cannot find information about who runs the website, the site may not be trustworthy. Trustworthy sites provide a way to contact the owners with questions or feedback. In general, you will find good health information on websites run by federal government agencies, medical schools, and large professional or nonprofit organizations. This page names the American College of Cardiology and the American Heart Association as reliable sources of information on heart health. When you use where trustworthy drug information lives as a starting point, you see why that publisher check comes before reading the article itself.

What is the page trying to do for you?

Purpose shapes tone. Ask whether the site exists to inform the public, to sell products or services, or to promote the opinions of a person or group. A page that informs will explain and cite. A page that sells will steer you toward a product. A page that promotes an opinion will repeat one point of view. You can feel that difference in how options are described and in whether other views get space.

That question helps with medicine guides too. A medicine guide should help you read a generic name and a class name, not push one treatment over another. If a health site keeps returning to one brand, one clinic or one remedy, treat that pattern as information about purpose. The page does not publish a score for purpose, so you have to read purpose from structure and language.

Follow the money without becoming cynical

Ask who pays for the site. If the site is funded by ads, they should be clearly marked as advertisements. Watch out for ads designed to look like neutral health information. The visual mimicry is the point. A box that looks like an article but sells a product can change how you read the next paragraph.

If a business pays for the site, the health information may favor that business and its products. That does not prove every sentence is false. It means you should read with funding in mind and compare with sites that have no product to move. When you find a website that seems to be trustworthy, do not stop there. Look to see if other reliable sites have similar health information.

How can you tell writing is balanced?

Good health information does not promote one treatment over another. It gives you balanced facts based on research. So beware of dramatic writing, promises of cures, and claims that sound too good to be true. Those could be signs of a health scam. That warning is useful when reading about medicine because patient star ratings cannot prove that a drug works, while balanced facts let you see what a source actually says and what it leaves out.

To evaluate quality, ask how information is selected and reviewed to make sure it is accurate. Check the About Us page to see if the site has an editorial board of health experts, a content review process, and a selection policy for content. Also look for information about writers' qualifications, which may be listed at the bottom of the articles. You can practice this habit while checking health information carefully against those markers instead of trusting tone alone.

Dates, sources and the About Us page

Ask where the information comes from. The content pages should have links or references to the sources of the information. A claim without a path back to its source leaves you with no way to verify it. A page that links out lets you follow the chain and see whether the source supports the sentence.

Ask whether the information is up to date. Content pages should include dates when the information was written, reviewed or updated. Medicine information changes, and a page without a date gives you no way to place it in time. Also look for a privacy policy section to see how your personal information will be used. Do not share information about yourself unless you are comfortable with any risks involved. For label reading, reading a MedlinePlus drug page shows how date and source lines sit near the content they support.

Why social posts and news clips need extra checks

A social media post may come from someone you know, but that does not guarantee it is good information. Many of the questions you use to evaluate a website also work for social media. Ask where the information comes from, why it exists, and whether anyone is funding it. A familiar sender is not a source. If you are not sure whether the information you see on social media is trustworthy, do not share it with others.

Some news stories about medical research may not include all the facts you need to know. Ask whether the story says the research involved people or animals. If it was people, ask how many people were in the study and who they were. Ask how long the study lasted, what type of study it was, and who paid for the research. If you learn a few tips for understanding medical research, you will be able to decide if a news story may apply to your health. Then you can discuss the information with your provider.

What about books and longer guides?

To evaluate health information in books, ask how old the book is, whether the author is an expert on the subject, and whether the book offers different points of view or just those of the author. Ask whether the book has been reviewed by other experts and whether it lists the sources of the content. Age matters because guidance changes. A single viewpoint matters because it narrows what you see. Review by others matters because it adds a second set of eyes.

After you evaluate health information, talk with your provider before using it to make decisions that may affect your health. That step closes the loop that started with publisher and date. You check, you compare, then you bring the pages to the person who knows your history.

MedlinePlus Evaluating Health Information is a National Library of Medicine page about judging health information. It covers websites, social media, news stories about research, and books, with questions on owner, purpose, funding, review, sources, dates and privacy. The page also groups related content under Start Here, Related Issues, Specifics, Videos and Tutorials, Journal Articles, Find an Expert, Older Adults and Patient Handouts.

Pull up the About Us page on the next health site you open and run the owner, purpose and date checks before you read the article itself.