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eHealthy Living
eHealthy Living
Wikipedia as a health tool?
Related to this project: Food4Health

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This blog has become a delicious (pun intended) source of information on food and health. Within 10 days we've gone from nothing to over 55 posts that include some fantastic content. Imagine once we start getting new members!

As useful as this is, I was reminded last week during one of the focus groups I was doing as part of another study just how important the Web is as a source of health information, particularly the popular sites. One that comes up frequently might surprise you: Wikipedia. I imagine one day in the not-too-distant future that it will serve as one of the first sources of information on diet, nutrition, and health. That has significant implications when you consider the potential issues around quality control, the possible absence of science literacy and what that could mean for what people read. We (as public health and health promotion folk) never get trained to contribute content to Wikipedia.

The reason? It's popular reading, not scientific. But maybe that's the point. Maybe that's why blogs like ours matter. Maybe that's why we (public health professionals and the like) ought to be adding to wikipedia as a matter of common practice, because at the end of the day, I'd rather people get their information from people who have the interest of the public at heart rather than some other motivation.

I guess I'll need to be adding a new line to my year-end report to the School of Public Health on my dissemination activities.

March 8, 2009 | 11:11 PM Comments  0 comments

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