Seeking Health Information on the Internet: National Institutes of Health Website - Essay Example

Authority:

Describe the reasons this website would be considered a reliable resource for information on the topic. Include contact information (group name, address, and phone number).

The National Institutes of Health (NHS) website could be very useful since it has a slot for searching for any related health information. The website has numerous health topics, such as diabetes, flu, Ebola, nutrition, depression, sleep, fitness, and hypertension among others (National Institutes of Health, 2014). Besides, the site is also visually appealing, professional, and polished.

Group name: National Institutes of Health

Address: 9000 Rockville Pike, Bethesda, Maryland 20892.

Phone number: 301-496-4000,
TTY 301-402-9612

Information:

Describe information presented on the website including all of the main headings of the site. Describe the accuracy and thoroughness of information and how you made this determination.

The mission statement, “Turning Discovery into Health” is short and bold allowing the reader to skim. To increase visibility and appeal, the main headings have been capitalized and written in a distinct color: red. There is a good use of color with a suitable color scheme that contains the 2 primary colors which blend well. The text can also be easily read since there is a combination of black and blue text on a white background. The website uses a font that is easy to read and is found on the majority of the current computer systems. The font size is 12 pts. The layout is uncluttered thus allowing the viewers to focus on the message. Furthermore, there is a utilization of high-quality photography so as to enhance the visual appeal.

Objectivity:

Explain how content does or does not represent bias based on advertising and sponsorship.

In a view shared by Cline and Haynes (2011), content does not represent bias-based sponsorship and advertising if the content is relevant and informative. This helps visitors make a decision. The content is also updated regularly because static content will not bring visitors back to the site. The topics are also supposed to be clearly labelled with the text broken up into smaller paragraphs so as to be read easily by the visitors. Proceeding further, minimal use of flashy graphics and multimedia in the content does not represent bias based on advertising and sponsorship.

Ease of Navigation:

Discuss the ease of use of this website for healthcare professionals and for laypersons. Differentiate the ease of navigation for each of these two groups.

According to  Braddy (2010), every component of a website is supposed to work quickly and correctly. For the health care professionals, the website uses easy-to-understand and logical names for the different pages of the site including news and events, about, FAQ, contact, and home among others. As for the laypersons, certain elements have been repeated. Besides, the laypersons can navigate easily due to the long, descriptive link text. a phone is also available to the customer care for assistance. The lay users can also navigate the site by traversing hyperlinks to related resources.

Usefulness:

Describe how useful the information on this website is for healthcare professionals and for laypersons. Differentiate usefulness for each of these two groups.

The site provides a wide range of information on health, which can be very helpful to healthcare practitioners. Since health information can overwhelm even people with advanced literacy skills, the information has been integrated into social media platforms, such as Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, and YouTube. Public engagement is a priority for every organization. Not all the people in the society are equipped with literary as well as professional skills. In this perspective, the sites’ information can assist a layperson to know the various types of diseases by looking at the graphics and other multimedia components used.