141st APHA Annual Meeting and Exposition

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288330
Evaluation of sexually transmitted infection related health information on internet


Wednesday, November 6, 2013 : 12:30 p.m. - 12:50 p.m.

Ashish Joshi, MD, PhD, MPH, 1Center for Global Health and Development and Department of Health Services Research Administration, University of Nebraska Medical Center College of Public Health, Omaha, NE
Shardul Sohani, 1Center for Global Health and Development and Department of Epidemiology, University of Nebraska Medical Center College of Public Health, Omaha, NE
Shireen Rajaram, Ph.D., Department of Health Promotion and Social and Behavioral Health, University of Nebraska Medical Center College of Public Health, Omaha, NE
Ashoo Grover, INDIAN COUNCIL OF MEDICAL RESEARCH, New Delhi, India
     
Background: Sexually transmitted infections (STI) include a group of diseases of diverse infectious etiology. Technological development has made the health information easily accessible to the general community through the internet.

Objective: To evaluate the usability, accessibility, and reliability of information related to Sexual transmitted infection on the internet.

Methods: The three search engines: Google, MSN/Bing, and Yahoo were used to search sexually transmitted infection and sexually transmitted diseases related information. We used previously validated LIDA tool that allows measuring the quality of health website's usability, accessibility and reliability. The first 20 web links provided by each search engine were analyzed and quality of STI related health information was assessed for various website categories including .Org, .Com, .Gov and others. Analysis was performed using SAS v9.1.

Results: Results showed high accessibility scores in comparison to the usability and reliability scores for the final analyzable websites. Usability and reliability scores were highest among the .Gov website categories. Reliability scores were lowest among the .Org website category. Majority of the websites were in the low category based on their usability (52%) and reliability (61%) scores. 96% of the .com websites were in the medium category based on their accessibility.

Conclusion: The Internet information on sexually transmitted infections and sexually transmitted diseases was deficient with regard to accessibility, usability and reliability.

Learning Areas:

Epidemiology

Learning Objectives:
Evaluate

Keyword(s): Evaluation, Internet

Presenting author's disclosure statement:

Qualified on the content I am responsible for because: Dr. Joshi is a trained Physician and obtained his degree in Medicine and Surgery from India followed by an additional training as a resident physician in Internal Medicine. He obtained his MPH from Boston University School of Public Health with majors in Epidemiology and Biostatistics, graduate certificate in Public Health Informatics from University of Maryland College Park and Phd form University of Texas. I have been responsible for the conceptual design of the research study.
Any relevant financial relationships? No

I agree to comply with the American Public Health Association Conflict of Interest and Commercial Support Guidelines, and to disclose to the participants any off-label or experimental uses of a commercial product or service discussed in my presentation.

Back to: 5170.0: Use of health IT in epidemiological research