Evaluating Health Information Online
When looking for health information, it is best to stick to reputable sites such as educational institutions, government sources, health related associations and societies and organisational sites.
The New South Wales Government has this simple fact sheet on Evaluating health information on the internet.
The National Library of Medicine - MedlinePlus has a webapge about Evaluating health information online.
The National Library of Medicine - MedlinePlus has an online tutorial called Evaluating Internet Health Information.
Consumer information
Consumer Information for practitioners
Databases
- BMJ Best Practice
Decision-support tool with evidence-based summaries and resources on medical symptoms and conditions. Includes guidelines, patient information and case reports.
- ClinicalKey (Elsevier)
Evidence based clinical summaries and guidelines, patient education resources, journal articles, ebooks, videos and drug information for all healthcare and medical disciplines.
- DynaMed
Decision-support tool with evidence-based summaries and resources on medical symptoms and conditions. Designed for point-of-care use and includes evidence quality information and guidelines.
- UpToDate
Find answers to clinical questions that arise in daily practice. Covers a wide array of topics and medical specialties. Includes links to full text articles, drug interaction databases and medical calculators.
- Gale Research Complete
Includes access to journal articles, newspapers, reference material, audio content and ebooks across multiple disciplines. It also includes access to Gale Primary Sources.
Consumer information patient websites
Drug Information
- Consumer medicines informationConsumer Medicine Information (CMI) leaflets contain information on the safe and effective use of a prescription medicine, as well as some non-prescription medicines and some biologicals. This website allows you to search for consumer medicines information.
- MedsinfoContains the most up to date version of many Consumer Medicine Information (CMI) and Product Information (PI) that are available in Australia, as the website is updated within hours of the release of the updated CMI and PI by the pharmaceutical company.
Health Information
- Better health channelProvide health and medical information to improve the health and wellbeing of people and the communities they live in. The information on our site aims to help people understand and manage their health and medical conditions.
- Centers for disease control and preventionFind diseases and conditions; healthy living; workplace safety; environmental health; injury, violence and safety, global health and more.
- Mayo Clinic Patient Care and Health InformationSearch for disease and conditions, symptoms, tests and procedures and drugs and supplements.
- Women's Health Concern FactsheetsA range of detailed factsheets providing information and advice on gynaecological, sexual and post reproductive health issues. The factsheets can be downloaded in PDF format or printed directly from the website.
- Men's Health LibraryThe Men's Health Library provides access to government and private sector publications, reports, and analyses that pertain to health, social science, and gender issues.
- Australian commission on safety and quality in health careInformation, tools and resources to help support consumers engagement with, and understanding of, safe and high-quality health care.
Children's Health Information
- Royal Children's HospitalKids Health Information is a suite of resources created by The Royal Children’s Hospital Melbourne and is dedicated to providing quality, up-to-date health information. Information can be found in the form of fact sheets, videos and podcast episodes.
- The Australian parenting websiteProvides parenting videos, articles and apps backed by Australian experts. Free, reliable, up-to-date and independent information to help your family grow and thrive together.
- Children’s Health Queensland Hospital and Health ServiceChildren’s Health Queensland is committed to providing patients and families with quality, up-to-date and easy-to-understand child health information. Our fact sheets have been developed for parents, carers, and young people, and cover a range of medical conditions and treatments.
Multilingual
- Health translationsHealth Translations aim is to improve the health and wellbeing of people from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds by providing health professionals and community members with reliable and up to date health and wellbeing information in over 100 languages.
- Children’s Health Queensland Hospital and Health Service - TranslatationsChildren’s Health Queensland is committed to providing patients and families with quality, up-to-date and easy-to-understand child health information. Our fact sheets have been developed for parents, carers, and young people, and cover a range of medical conditions and treatments.
- MedlinePlusBrowse health information in multiple languages, arranged by language. You can also browse this information by health topic.
