How to find reliable sources of health information

Our lives are filled with information.  We have powerful computers in our hands nearly every waking hour, and we use them to find solutions for everything from removing a particular stain to accessing self-help tools for health problems.

With so much unregulated content available, how can we be sure that we can trust the health information? And how do we decide if the content is relevant? Let’s take a look.

Where you access information you can trust

Start with government sources. The Australian Government has a number of great sources of health information from commonwealth and state government health departments. Information from government sources will be backed by research and experts in their field.

1. Australian Government: https://www.australia.gov.au/health-advice
2. National Health and Medical Research Council: https://www.nhmrc.gov.au/health-advice
3. Better Health Channel: https://www.betterhealth.vic.gov.au/
4. NSW Health: https://www.health.nsw.gov.au/
5. WA Health: https://www.healthywa.wa.gov.au/
6. Health Direct: https://www.healthdirect.gov.au/

Depending on your health concern or condition, you can next look to peak bodies like Diabetes Australia, Asthma Australia, The Heart Foundation, The Sleep Health Foundation, Dietitians Australia, or Arthritis Australia.  These representative bodies are not for profit, and will be citing information backed by research and experts in their field. 

Other sources of reliable information both nationally and internationally are:

• Reputable healthcare intuitions for example Royal Children's Hospital : Kids Health Information
• The World Health Organization: https://www.who.int/

The Australian Government has produced this guide – How to find good health information online - YouTube.

Take care with information that tries to sell you something or makes you feel fear or panic. Sources that give you one choice or option, rely on just one case or experience, or is an opinion that does not come from an expert should be carefully considered.  Particularly take care with information given over social media. 

Be a critical thinker: does this information make sense to me and what are the qualifications of the person or organisation who has authored the information?

As a general guide, the website address (also called URL) can help identify the type of agency or organisation that owns the site. 

• .gov identifies a government agency
• .edu identifies an educational institution, such as a school, college, or university
• .org usually identifies non profit organisations
• .com identifies commercial websites, such as businesses and pharmaceutical companies

The following information provides some guidance for reading medical or scientific news.

How to read medical or scientific news 

Medical/scientific news often has pieces on exciting new scientific studies with results that will shock you! It can be difficult to figure out how excited or worried to be about these studies.  For example, an article came out recently about Hair straightening chemicals associated with higher uterine cancer risk | National Institutes of Health (NIH).  This article made a bit of a stir in the news, but is it useful or relevant to most people?  Here are some questions to ask about a scientific study that can help an individual navigate how relevant it is,,.  

Is this a scientific study?

Some initial questions are: Is this article backed with a scientific study, and do they give you a link or how to find the study? 

Does the content of the article back the headline, and does the article information match the information in the study? 

The hair straightening article has linked the original study, and it matches the original study.

Where does the study come from?

Is this study published in a peer-reviewed journal?  A peer-reviewed journal is a dedicated collection of articles about an area of research, where each article is reviewed by experts in the field before it is published.  This requires a standard of data and analysis that is designed to ensure the studies published are more trustworthy.

Sometimes research is put forward at conferences, where it might not be reviewed as closely as those in a journal.

It is important to know who is funding the study – often companies will do research on their own products and that can be important to know as it can produce biased results.     

Speak to your GP or healthcare provider

While educating yourself about your health issues is an important part of managing your health, the best place to find health information is from healthcare professionals. Talk to your GP or healthcare provider about your health concerns etc…If you need to speak to a healthcare professional and are unable to access your regular GP, you can book for a telehealth consultation. 

Our article refers to a study in the peer reviewed Journal of the National Cancer Institute.  It was funded by a government grant.

Was the research in humans? How many? And who?

Before we get excited by research in the news, check who the study is on.  Is it on humans or was it done in mice, or zebra fish or on cells in a dish?  While these discoveries might eventually be very useful for people, quite often after further studies they don’t translate.  

If the study was done on humans, it can be relevant to know how many people are in the study.  This can be a complicated question, but if they’ve only tested a few people, it might not be as accurate as if they had a larger group of people. 

As you look closer, it can also be useful to understand who was in the study.  This could be about age, sex, ethnicity/ancestry, condition, treatments, history, or other factors. If a study is on men who are over 65 years with a history of heart disease, then it might not be relevant if you are a 25-year-old pregnant woman.

The study we are looking at is on humans and included 33,947 women who had not had breast cancer, but did have a sister with breast cancer, with 378 women having a uterine cancer. They use a number of factors including age, BMI, hormonal factors, levels of physical activity, race/ethnicity amongst others.

What do the study results mean?

When the research doesn’t have any obvious flags, we can look more closely.  There are many different sorts of studies, and two common types are observational and intervention.  Observational is where a large group of people is used, and researchers look for patterns.  This is a good way to find possible health effects, but it isn’t always clear why those patterns happen.  Intervention looks for what happens when conditions change, such as medications/treatment or environmental changes.  These are best done using a control group, where the group of people are as close as possible in every other aspect.

Our example article is an observational study which suggests that women in the study who had not used straighteners/relaxers/pressing products in the year before they started in this study had a 1.64% chance of developing uterine cancer by age 70, and in women who had used straighteners 4 or more times in that year that risk went up to 4.05%. When it came to why, they suggest that it could be because of ingredients such as parabens, bisphenol A, metals and formaldehyde.  There have been studies linking some of these ingredients to cancers linked with hormones.

After this we look at the results.  This is endless, and there are many ways to do this which could be several whole articles by itself.  

It is estimated that the lifetime risk of uterine cancer is 3.1%.  Uterine cancer is not common before the age of 45, most commonly over age 50 with the average age at diagnosis 60. There are other risk factors such as obesity, family history/genetic cancer conditions, personal history of other cancers and some cancer treatments which need to be considered as well when considering what lowers or increases risk. 

In the USA there are no regulations limiting amount of formaldehyde in cosmetic products like hair straighteners, although there are rules about labelling the products.  In Australia there are strict limits, with amounts of up to 0.05% allowed as a preservative and up to 0.2% allowed if labelled “CONTAINS FORMALDEHYDE”, so exposures may be different even with the same frequency of hair treatment. 

Bringing it together, this study points out an interesting pattern, which fits with previous knowledge, and offers suggestions but doesn’t explain why this pattern exists.  Rather than individual guidance this study is most useful as a guide to further research, to look closer at what ingredients in straighteners may be a risk factor, and from a public health perspective support rules limiting exposure to those ingredients.

In terms of personal choices, that is up to the individual, but knowing the limitations and context of news allows us to consider our personal risk in relation to findings. 

Ask for help

If you have seen news or have read an article that you aren’t sure how to interpret but feel that if may affect your health care choices, you can always ask for help.  Your doctor or health care provider can help interpret the article and can advise how to apply its contents to your situation.