Valitidy of Health Information & Websites

Critical Thinking About Health Information Sources

Press and Internet Sites (NAME (SCHOOL

Evaluating Information : The Criteria

Thoughtful readers of any age are attentive to health and nutrition claims . Beginning at adolescence , they avidly gather and pass on every plausible tidbit of information about maintaining a clear complexion about figure control , and about realizing their full physical or mental potential . Advancing into young parenthood and middle age means they heed health and nutrition even more , not less . For the human drives to look good , maintain youthful looks and hold degenerative disease at

bay is characteristic of well-educated professionals , businessmen and stay-at-home parents alike

The desire to learn more and practice effective health and nutrition reflect the continuing flux in the sciences and medicine in particular Many of the discoveries with respect to vitamins began only in 1912 with the Polish biochemist Kazimierz Funk , for instance . And there is the paradox of reverse epidemiology ' in which one of the more puzzling findings is that such risk factors for the general population as hypertension , obesity and elevated cholesterol levels are actually associated with survival in patients with end-stage kidney disease and congestive heart failure . The physicians involved are only just beginning to offer tentative hypotheses on why this should be the case

In fact , formulating hypotheses about cause-and-effect or intervening variables in correlation studies is one of the corroborating elements that one should look for when evaluating health and nutrition claims In essence , the reader is reminded to review the fundamentals of the scientific method and proper research practice in general

Among the key elements of the scientific method that apply to evaluating new devel-opments ' in health and nutrition research are

Validity , the most basic construct , refers to whether the study truly measures what it purports to do . In mainstream pharmacological studies for instance , animal studies are commonly followed by controlled research on human subjects . In the end , one asks how applicable the findings are to people who have the same health and nutrition concern

Reliability , a core element , of sound scientific research , requires that the findings be replicable when the same methods are applied to a fairly similar population and with similar controls in place . One looks askance at a study if it is the only one of its kind so far . Similarly one views a study favorably when put in the proper context of prior related research

Completeness of the information presented . For a scientific study , this includes hypothesis , objectives , research design , pro of subjects outcome , and statistical rigor . This last refers to important measures of reliability : what is the standard error of estimate for the sample size and what does this mean for the reliability of the study findings

When absorbing the content of a web site , the completeness ' criterion may mean being vigilant about selective citation of journals and authoritative sources

Recognizing the benefits and trade-off 's of population studies ( epidemiological ' or tracking type ) vis-a-vis experimental designs All the same , experts make recommendations based on an assessment of both...