Future Now
The IFTF Blog
"But doctor, it says so on Wikipedia!"
A study published earlier this year ("Seeking Health Information Online: Does Wikipedia Matter?") in the Journal of Medical Informatics Association found that Wikipedia ranked in the top ten search results for health-related topics 71-85% of the time, depending on which search engine and keywords were used. This came as little surprise. The reliability of the information available, however, has always depended on the knowledge and rigor of Wikipedia's contributors and editors.
Wikipedia has now taken an important step toward improving the quality of the health information its millions of users access. A couple of weeks ago, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the Wikimedia Foundation, which operates Wikipedia, announced a partnership "to make health and science information more accessible and reliable." Sue Gardner, executive director of the Foundation, explains: "With the broad range of experts from [NIH], we see a great opportunity for increasing the quality of all health-related information on Wikipedia, benefitting users of Wikipedia from all over the world."
To that end, on July 16th, NIH hosted at its headquarters a two-day workshop called Wikipedia Academy, a training session to encourage and teach its scientists to create and edit Wikipedia articles. The nation's medical research agency "works to ensure that the information it provides on science and health is of the highest quality and reaches the widest audience."
I am delighted, especially with Wikipedia, for taking this step to increase the availability of accurate medical and health information available to the public. More and more people are turning to the Internet as a source of health information (61% of adults today, up from 25% in 2000, according to Pew Internet's most recent report), and are walking into their doctors' offices with sheafs of paper in hand. This trend will benefit now from this infusion of greater reliability. (Of course, if you don't trust anything that comes out of the health establishment, especially if it comes from the government, then this story may instill fear and dread in you.)