Skip to main content

Advertisement

SpringerLink
Log in

Searching for health: the topography of the first page

  • Original Paper
  • Published:
Ethics and Information Technology Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

Members of the lay public are turning increasingly to the internet to answer health-related questions. Some authors suggest that the widespread availability of online health information has dislodged medical knowledge from its traditional institutional base and enabled a growing role for alternative or previously unrecognized health perspectives and ‘lay health expertise’. Others have argued, however, that the organization of information retrieved from influential search engines, particularly Google, has merely intensified mainstream perspectives because of the growing consolidation of the internet with traditional, commercial media sources. In this paper we describe an analysis of ‘first page’ results retrieved through Google searches about several common health concerns, each of which has been the subject of controversy as a result of uncertain aetiology, diagnoses, outcomes and/or contested approaches to treatment. Our findings suggest that the online search tactics used by most lay health information seekers produce sources of information that, for the most part, reflect mainstream biomedical discourses, often linked to commercial interests, rather than a plurality of voices that offer a variety of perspectives and resources. We discuss the implications for health-interested internet searchers who fail to look beyond the ‘first page’.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Fig. 1

Similar content being viewed by others

Notes

  1. See, for example, www.DesignOwnWeb.com (2009).

  2. Software available from Tim Craven: http://publish.uwo.ca/~craven/freeware.htm.

  3. The term ‘headaches’, however, did produce some results arising from a non-medical use of the term, for example, the newspaper headline ‘Summer roadwork could cause driver headaches’.

  4. http://kidshealth.org/teen/diseases_conditions/learning/adhd.html.

  5. http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/fibromyalgia.html.

  6. http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/fibromyalgia/AR00056/METHOD=print.

  7. http://www.camh.net/About_Addiction_Mental_Health/Mental_Health_Information/Bipolar_Disorder/index.html.

  8. http://www.nhs.uk/Conditions/Fibromyalgia/Pages/Introduction.aspx.

  9. Interestingly, MediResource was also the content supplier for information on the Ontario government’s consumer health website, ‘HealthyOntario.com’. Since our search, the HealthyOntario.com consumer health information portal has been removed by the government and has not been replaced.

  10. http://womenshealth.about.com/cs/hotflashes/a/nomorehotflashs.htm.

  11. http://fm-cfs.ca/c_in_a.html.

  12. http://helpguide.org/about.htm.

  13. http://www.caddac.ca/cms/page.php?2.

  14. http://www.breastcancer.org/tips/menopausal/facing/hot_flashes.jsp.

  15. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q_XWa0BVcuw.

  16. http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x4o43t_is-bipolar-mania-spiritual-enlighte_blog.

  17. http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x3isgs_bipolar-psychology_school.

References

  • APA. (2000). Diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders (4th ed.). Washington, DC: American Psychiatric Association.

    Google Scholar 

  • APA. (2002). Practice guideline for treatment of patients of bipolar disorder (revision). American Journal of Psychiatry, 159(S4), 1–150.

    Google Scholar 

  • Barker, K. K. (2008). Electronic support groups, patient-consumers, and medicalization: The case of contested illness. Journal of Health and Social Behavior, 49(1), 20–36.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Bogaards, M. C., & ter Kuile, M. M. (1994). Treatment of recurrent tension headache: A meta-analytic review. The Clinical Journal of Pain, 10(3), 174–190.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Bowker, G. C., & Star, S. L. (1999). Sorting things out. Classification and its consequences. Cambridge, MA: Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bromfield, R. (1996). Second opinion: More and more children are diagnosed with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. But is ADHD a real disease or just the latest fad? American Health, 15(5), 32–60.

    Google Scholar 

  • Carpenter-Song, E. (2009). Caught in the psychiatric net: Meanings and experiences of ADHD, pediatric bipolar disorder and mental health treatment among a diverse group of families in the United States. Culture, Medicine and Psychiatry, 33(1), 61–85.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Conrad, P. (1975). The discovery of hyperkinesis: Notes on the medicalization of deviant behavior. Social Problems, 23, 12–21.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Corbin, J., & Strauss, A. (1987). Accompaniments of chronic illness: Changes in body, self, biography and biographical time. Research in the Sociology of Health Care, 6, 249–281.

    Google Scholar 

  • Danforth, S., & Navarrio, V. (2001). Hypertalk: Sampling and social construction of ADHD in everyday language. Anthropology & Education Quarterly, 32(2), 167–190.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • DesignownWeb.com. (2009). How to get your website first page on Google, Yahoo, Bing and other major search engines. http://www.designownweb.com/How_to_get_on_the_first_page_of_google.html. Accessed 14 October 2009.

  • Elgesem, D. (2008). Search engines and the public use of reason. Ethics and Information Technology, 20, 233–242.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Eysenbach, G., & Köhler, C. (2002). How do consumers search for and appraise health information on the world wide web? Qualitative study using focus groups, usability tests, and in-depth interviews. BMJ 324(9 March), 573–577.

    Google Scholar 

  • Fox, S., & Jones, S. (2009). The social life of health information. Washington, D.C.: Pew Internet and American Life Project.

    Google Scholar 

  • Goadsby, P. J., Lipton, R. B., & Ferrari, M. D. (2002). Migraine—Current understanding and treatment. New England Journal of Medicine, 346, 257–270.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Goodwin, G. M. (2003). Evidence-based guidelines for treating bipolar disorder: Recommendations from the British Association for Psychopharmacology. Journal of Psychopharmacology, 17, 149–173.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Greendale, G. A., Lee, N. P., & Arriola, E. R. (1999). The menopause. Lancet, 353, 571–580.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Hardey, M. (1999). Doctor in the house: The internet as a source of lay health knowledge and the challenge to expertise. Sociology of Health & Illness, 21(6), 820–835.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Headache Classification Subcommittee of the International Headache Society. (2004). The international classification of headache disorders, 2nd edn. Cephalagia, 24(S1), 1–160.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hemminkia, E., Karttunena, T., Hovia, S.-L., & Karro, H. (2004). The drug industry and medical practice—The case of menopausal hormone therapy in Estonia. Social Science and Medicine, 58, 89–97.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Hoffman, D. E., & Torzian, A. J. (2001). The girl who cried pain: A bias against women in the treatment of pain. Journal of Law, Medicine and Ethics, 29, 13–27.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Horwitz, A., & Wakefield, J. (2009). The medicalization of sadness: How psychiatry transformed a natural emotion into a mental disorder. In A. Maturo & P. Conrad (Eds.), The medicalization of life, Salute e Società (VIII, 2, pp. 49–66).

  • Huxley, N. S., Parikh, S. V., & Baldessarini, R. J. (2000). Effectiveness of psychosocial treatments in bipolar disorder. Harvard Review of Psychiatry, 8, 126–140.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hyde, A., Nee, J., Howlett, E., Drennan, J., & Butler, M. (2010). Menopause narratives: The interplay of women’s embodied experiences with biomedical discourses. Qualitative Health Research, 20(6), 805–815.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Introna, L. D. (2007). Maintaining the reversibility of foldings: Making the ethics (politics) of information technology visible. Ethics and Information Technology, 9(1), 11–25.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Introna, L. D., & Nissenbaum, H. (2000). Shaping the Web: Why the politics of search engines matters. The Information Society, 16(3), 169–186.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Jones, S. (2004). Psychotherapy of bipolar disorder: A review. Journal of Affective Disorders, 80, 101–114.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Kempner, J. (2006). Uncovering the man in medicine: Lessons learned from a case study of cluster headache. Gender & Society, 20(5), 632–656.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Keselman, A., Browne, A. C., & Kaufman, D. R. (2008). Consumer health information seeking as hypothesis testing. Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association, 15, 484–495.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Kopelson, K. (2009). Writing patients’ wrongs: The rhetoric and reality of information age medicine. JAC, 29(1–2), 353–404.

    Google Scholar 

  • Latour, B. (2005). Reassembling the social: An introduction to actor network theory. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Lefever, G. B., Dawson, K. V., & Morrow, A. D. (1999). The extent of drug therapy for attention deficit hyperactivity disorder among children in public schools. American Journal of Public Health, 89, 1359–1364.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Lonardi, C. (2007). The passing dilemma in socially invisible diseases: Narratives on chronic headache. Social Science and Medicine, 67, 1619–1629.

    Google Scholar 

  • Lyons, A. C., & Griffin, C. (2003). Managing menopause: A qualitative analysis of self-help literature for women at mid-life. Social Science and Medicine, 56, 1629–1642.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Maturo, A. (2010). Bipolar disorder and the medicalization of mood: An epidemics of diagnosis? Advances in Medical Sociology, 11, 2225–2242.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • McTavish, J. R. (2004). Pain and profits: The history of headache and its remedies in America. New Jersey: Rutgers University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • McTavish, J., & Harris, R. (2007). Relations of production: Representations of consumers and their health on mainstream and alternative health information sites. Canadian Journal of Information and Library Science, 31(3/4), 249–268.

    Google Scholar 

  • Meyer, G. A. (2002). The art of watching out: Vigilance in women who have migraine headaches. Qualitative Health Research, 12(9), 1220–1234.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Moulin, D. E. (2001). Systematic drug treatment for chronic musculoskeletal pain. Clinical Journal of Pain, 17(S4), S86–S93.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Nettleton, S., & Burrows, R. (2003). E-scaped medicine? Information, reflexivity and health. Critical Social Policy, 23(2), 165–185.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Olesen, J., Lekander, I., Andlin-Sobocki, P., & Jönsson, B. (2007). Funding of headache research in Europe. Cephalalgia, 27(9), 995–999.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Pan, B., Hembrooke, H., Joachims, T., Lorigo, L., Gay, G., & Granka, L. (2007). In Google we trust: Users’ decisions on rank, position, and relevance. Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, 12(3), article 3. http://jcmc.indiana.edu/vol12/issue3/pan.html.

  • Post, R. M., & Leverich, G. S. (2006). The role of psychosocial stress in the onset and progression of bipolar disorder and its comorbidities: The need for earlier and alternative modes of therapeutic intervention. Development and Psychopathology, 18(4), 1181–1211.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Seale, C. (2005). New directions for critical internet health studies: representing cancer experience on the web. Sociology of Health & Illness, 27(4), 515–540.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Segal, J. Z. (2009). Internet health and the 21st-century patient. A rhetorical view. Written Communication, 26(4), 351–369.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Sim, J., & Adams, N. (2002). Systematic review of randomized controlled trials of nonpharmacological interventions for fibromyalgia. Clinical Journal of Pain, 18(5), 324–336.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Sim, J., & Madden, S. (2008). Illness experience in fibromyalgia syndrome: A metasynthesis of qualitative studies. Social Science and Medicine, 67(1), 57–67.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Sjaastad, O. (1992). Cluster headache syndrome. London: W.B. Saunders.

    Google Scholar 

  • Van Voris, B. (2001). Ritalin class actions: Fast start, big stumbles; but it’s still early, plaintiffs assert. National Law Journal, 23(50), pA1.

    Google Scholar 

  • Vandenbrouke, J. P. (2009). The HRT controversy: Observational studies and RCTs fall in line. The Lancet, 373(9671), 1233–1235.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Wessely, S., & Hotopf, M. (1999). Is fibromyalgia a distinct clinical entity? Historical and epidemiological evidence. Baillière’s Clinical Rheumatology, 13(3), 427–436.

    Google Scholar 

  • Williams, G. (1984). The genesis of chronic illness: Narrative reconstruction. Sociology of Health & Illness, 6, 175–200.

    Article  Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Faculty of Information & Media Studies, The University of Western Ontario, North Campus Building, Room 240, London, ON, N6A 5B7, Canada

    Jill McTavish, Roma Harris & Nadine Wathen

Authors
  1. Jill McTavish
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Roma Harris
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  3. Nadine Wathen
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Roma Harris.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Cite this article

McTavish, J., Harris, R. & Wathen, N. Searching for health: the topography of the first page. Ethics Inf Technol 13, 227–240 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10676-011-9272-8

Download citation

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10676-011-9272-8

Keywords

Search

Navigation