apologies for cross-posting - this is an interesting article for this listerv to consider. The journal Health Education Research may only be available to subscribers or to people who have access to university libraries. As a founder of the CLICK4HP listserv, I am particularly interested in the the empowering and disempowering aspects of health and health promotion on the Internet. It's a well-rounded article that explores many of the issues. I recommend it for health promoters who work through and with the Internet.

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Health Education Research 2006 21(1):78-86; doi:10.1093/her/cyh043

Health on the Internet: implications for health promotion
Peter Korp

Abstract: The aim of this article is to discuss the implications of health on the Internet for health promotion, focusing in particular on the concept of empowerment. Empowering aspects of health on the Internet include the enabling of advanced information and knowledge retrieval, anonymity and convenience in accessing information, creation of social contacts and support independent of time and space, and challenging the expert-lay actor relationship. The disempowering aspects of health on the Internet are that it involves a shift towards the expert control and evaluation of sources of health information, that it widens the gap between 'information-rich' and 'information-poor' users, thus reproducing existing social divisions, and that the increase in medicalization and healthism results in increased anxiety and poorer health. The health promotive and empowering strategies presented in this article are directed at strengthening people's ability to evaluate different information sources in relation to their own interests and needs rather than in relation to scientific and/or professional standards

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A related issue of the Health Education Research journal was in December 2001, covering health education on the Internet, from a more 'traditional' intervention perspective. One article from that issue of interest is 

Consumer health information seeking on the Internet: the state of the art by  R. J. W. Cline & K. M. Haynes in   
Health Education Research  Vol: 16, Issue: 6, December 01, 2001  

Abbreviated Abstract: Increasingly, consumers engage in health information seeking via the Internet. Taking a communication perspective, this review argues why public health professionals should be concerned about the topic, considers potential benefits, synthesizes quality concerns, identifies criteria for evaluating online health information and critiques the literature.

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Alison
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Alison Stirling, MHSc. 
Health Promotion Information Specialist
Health Promotion Affiliate, Canadian Health Network 

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