Learn About Health
Evaluating health information
What is high quality health information?
The Internet is a great place to find information about your health or the health of a loved one. But not all of the information you find online is good for your health. In fact, a lot of the information you find online about health can be inaccurate, out of date and misleading.
Staff at the Patient and Family Learning Centre want to ensure that patients and visitors at St. Michael’s Hospital have access to high quality health information - but what exactly is high quality health information?

Evaluating Health Websites for Quality
When evaluating a website for quality, look for signs that will help you decide if the website will provide you with high quality health information.
The chart below will help you through the decision making process. Good signs () are indicators of a high quality website, while red flags (
) means you should probably keep looking for a better site.
Adapted from “Finding and Evaluating Health Information Online” from Halton Healthcare’s Health Information Centre Online.
Signs of a high quality website | Red flags to watch out for |
---|---|
The information is found on a website that has...
|
The information is found on a website that has...
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More resources to help you
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Evaluating health information from MedlinePlus |
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Find good health information |
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The DISCERN instrument |
Understanding medical words
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MedlinePlus medical dictionary |
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Plain language medical dictionary |
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What did my doctor say? |