Heartland Alliance Consumer Health Resources: Consumer Health Resources

This guide outlines the collective wisdom of medical librarians who surf the web every day to discover quality information in support of clinical and scientific decision making by doctors, scientists, and other health practitioners responsible for the nation's health. This guide is supported by the Medical Library Association (MLA), the library organization whose primary purpose is promoting quality information for improved health and whose members were the first to realize that not all health information on the web is credible, timely, or safe.

NLM librarians can't answer questions about individual medical cases or offer medical advice, because we are not doctors, nurses, or pharmacists. You can use this guide to help find health information resources.

This is a link to a tutorial that teaches you how to evaluate the health information that you find on the Web. It is about 16 minutes long.

Health question and answer Internet resource produced by Alice! Health Promotion at Columbia University

Government site for health information and tools

Network of youth and adults who support the sexual health, rights and identities of youth

Information and advice about health, emotions, and life

MEDLINEPlus provides health professionals and consumers information that is authoritative and up to date. There are also lists of hospitals and physicians, a medical encyclopedia and dictionaries, health information in Spanish.

PubMed is the National Library of Medicine's premier bibliographic database that contains references to journal articles in the life sciences with a concentration on biomedicine.

You will find valuable cancer-related information of all kinds. For the general public, patients, and health professionals, you will find consumer-oriented information on a wide range of topics as well as comprehensive descriptions of our research programs and clinical trials.

ClinicalTrials.gov is a registry of federally and privately supported clinical trials conducted in the United States and around the world. ClinicalTrials.gov gives you information about a trial's purpose, who may participate, locations, and phone numbers for more details. This information should be used in conjunction with advice from health care professionals.

This database links over 23,000 consumer brands to health effects from Material Safety Data Sheets (MSDS) provided by manufacturers and allows scientists and consumers to research products based on chemical ingredients.

Genetics Home Reference provides consumer-friendly information about the effects of genetic variations on human health.

AETC Program Mission: To improve the quality of life of persons living with or at-risk of HIV through the provision of high-quality professional education and training.

CDC.gov provides users with credible, reliable health information on Data and Statistics, Diseases and Conditions, Emergencies and Disasters, Environmental Health, Healthy Living, Injury, Violence and Safety, Life Stages and Populations, Travelers' Health, Workplace Safety and Health and more. CDC.gov provides health and safety information to individuals interested in health issues, Public Health Professionals, Healthcare Providers,
Researchers and Scientists, Media, Businesses, Students and Educators.

In the modern world lived in today, it is important for everyone to receive a proper education on the role sex plays in their overall health. Sexual health encompasses factors ranging from behaviour, attitudes, and conditioning, to biological and genetic factors and often deals with problems of STDs, unintended pregnancy and abortion, infertility and sexual dysfunction.

The Genetic Science Learning Center is a science and health education program located in the midst of the bioscience research being carried out at the University of Utah. Our mission is making science easy for everyone to understand.

This is a government Web site where you will find information and tools to help you and those you care about stay healthy. When making decisions about your health, it’s important to know where to go to get the latest, most reliable information. Healthfinder.gov has resources on a wide range of health topics selected from over 1,600 government and non-profit organizations to bring you the best, most reliable health information on the Internet.

Healthline's medical expertise and technical product portfolio is derived from a consumer healthcare taxonomy that was developed in conjunction with physicians and is maintained today by a team of medical informatics specialists. The taxonomy (or "classification")
consists of a terminology database of over one million medical terms and consumer-friendly synonyms, as well as 250,000 medical concepts that include diseases, conditions, causes, symptoms, diagnoses, treatments and other medically relevant attributes.

Our mission is to empower people to manage their health. We accomplish this by providing useful and up-to-date information and tools that reflect the expertise and standard of excellence of Mayo Clinic.

A team of Web professionals and medical experts working side by side produces this site. Through this unique collaboration, we give you access to the experience and knowledge of the more than 3,300 physicians, scientists and researchers of Mayo Clinic

NIDA's mission is to lead the Nation in bringing the power of science to bear on drug abuse and addiction. This charge has two critical components. The first is the strategic support and conduct of research across a broad range of disciplines. The second is ensuring the rapid and effective dissemination and use of the results of that research to significantly improve prevention and treatment and to inform policy as it relates to drug abuse and addiction.

NOAH provides access to high quality consumer health information in English and Spanish. The NOAH volunteer editors do not write this information. Instead, librarians and health professionals in New York and beyond find, select, and organize full-text consumer health information that is current, relevant, accurate and unbiased.

Mental health disorders strike millions of Americans – regardless of race, color, gender, age, and socioeconomic status – each year. Some disorders are mild, while others are more disabling and require intensive management and care. Consider these statistics from the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH), part of the National Institutes of Health (NIH).

Quackwatch, Inc., is a nonprofit corporation whose purpose is to combat health-related frauds, myths, fads, fallacies, and misconduct. Its primary focus is on quackery-related information that is difficult or impossible to get elsewhere. Founded by Dr. Stephen Barrett in 1969 as the Lehigh Valley Committee Against Health Fraud, it was incorporated in 1970.

The SALUD Public Health Information Pilot Project is a collaboration between the Chicago Department of Public Health and the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC) Library of the Health Sciences and College of Nursing. The goals of the SALUD project are to:

1. Develop a cadre of community health nursing students well educated in accessing and evaluating health education materials.
2. Increase patient health education with reading-level and language-appropriate materials.
3. Increase knowledge of and access to health information by nurses and physicians in Chicago public health clinics.

TeensHealth is part of the KidsHealth family of websites. These sites, run by the nonprofit Nemours Center for Children's Health Media, provide accurate, up-to-date health information that's free of "doctor speak."

The Office on Women's Health (OWH) was established in 1991 within the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Its Vision is to ensure that "All Women and Girls are Healthier and Have a Better Sense of Well Being." Its mission is to "provide leadership to promote health equity for women and girls through sex/gender-specific approaches." The strategy OWH uses to achieve its mission and vision is through the development of innovative programs, by educating health professionals, and motivating behavior change in consumers through the dissemination of health information.