A quick response to Joseph Ana who wondered whether we could identify reliable health information by just adopting "the method used to grade hotels (from one to five or even higher Stars)".
It's an intriguing thought, but when you get down to the details, not so easy. You need a list of criteria (much easier for hotels than for informaiton!) and an unimpeachable authority (very difficult to find these days, with politicians such as Michael Gove saying "We've had enough of experts", and Donald Trump's distaste for WHO and what we thought were other health authorities).
Neverthelesss, there have been many kite-marking schemes proposed, but these have not fared well. For example, the Health On the Net Foundation (HON), a Swiss not-for-profit organization based in Geneva which promoted a code of conduct for websites providing health information and offered certificates to those in compliance.
According to Wikipedia, "In September 2022, Health On the Net website pages included the advisory text "HON is no longer updated and will be permanently discontinued on December 15, 2022. Despite all our efforts, it is no longer possible to maintain it. We thank you for your understanding." As of March 2024, their domain names are inactive."
Best,
Chris
Chris Zielinski
Centre for Global Health, University of Winchester, UK and
President, World Association of Medical Editors (WAME)
Blogs; http://ziggytheblue.wordpress.com and http://ziggytheblue.tumblr.com
Publications: http://www.researchgate.net and https://winchester.academia.edu/ChrisZielinski/
HIFA Profile: Chris Zielinski held senior positions at the World Health Organization for 15 years, in Africa, WHOs Geneva Headquarters, and India, and earlier in other UN-system organizations working in writing, media, publishing, knowledge management, and intellectual property. He also spent three years as Chief Executive of the Authors Licensing and Collecting Society (looking after the intellectual property revenues of all UK authors and journalists). Chris was the founder of the ExtraMED project (Third World biomedical journals on CD-ROM), and managed the Gates Foundation-supported Health Information Centres project. At WHO he was appointed to the Ethical Review Committee, and was an originator of the African Health Observatory during his years in Brazzaville. With interests in the information, and computer ethics and bioethics, Chris has edited numerous books and journals and worked as a translator. Now working independently, Chris has recently finished writing a travel book called Afreekinout.
Email: chris AT chriszielinski.com