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Andreas Tietz,1,a Stephen C. Davies,2 and John S. Moran3
1Section of Infectious Diseases, Louisiana State University Health Sciences Center, New Orleans, Louisiana; 2Sutherland Hospital, Sydney, Australia; and 3Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Atlanta, Georgia| The
Internet provides patients, clinicians, teachers,
and researchers with immediate access to reliable information,
authoritative recommendations, and the latest research
findings and statistics, but quickly finding
the best sources while avoiding the unreliable and
obsolete can be a problem. We searched the
Internet for the most useful English-language Web sites
on sexually transmitted diseases (STDs), with annotations,
in 4 tables: sites for patients, for clinicians
and teachers, and for researchers, and sites
dedicated to a single STD. In the process, we
found that government-sponsored sites tended to
have the most reliable information. This held
true regardless of the kind of information we
were seeking. Several university-sponsored sites contained
information that was outdated or erroneous.
Commercial and nonprofit sites sometimes evinced a bias
that could mislead some readers. Both health care
professionals and laypersons seeking information about STDs
on the World Wide Web should generally start
their search at government-sponsored sites.
Received 30 December 2003; accepted 4 January 2004; electronically published 15 April 2004. a Present affiliation: Division of Hospital Epidemiology, University of Basel, Switzerland. |
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