Whos filtering health information?
Julie Becker, PhD, MPH, Temple University, , jbecker@astro.temple.edu The perception exists that the World Wide Web fosters global dissemination of health information by offering access to anywhere, thereby offering a panacea for consumers who want or need this information. But access is only one way to limit what consumers can view on-line. The context of health information can be filtered through the content provider including the web masters. A qualitative study was conducted examining the policies and procedures for information and links on breast cancer web sites. The study consisted of 3 parts: 1) a content analysis examined 30 constructs relating to the organization and to the posted information; 2) web masters were surveyed about the posting policies and procedures as well as the links; and 3) interviews were conducted with about 60% of web masters who responded to the surveys. A comparison was made between the written/ verbal responses of the web masters and the content analys
