Surfing the web during pandemic flu: availability of World Health Organization recommendations on prevention.

ABSTRACT:

Background

People often search for information on influenza A(H1N1)v prevention on the web. The extent to which information found on the Internet is consistent with recommendations issued by the World Health Organization is unknown.

Methods

We conducted a search for "swine flu" accessing 3 of the most popular search engines through different proxy servers located in 4 English-speaking countries (Australia, Canada, UK, USA). We explored each site resulting from the searches, up to 4 clicks starting from the search engine page, analyzing availability of World Health Organization recommendations for swine flu prevention.

Results

Information on hand cleaning was reported on 79% of the 147 websites analyzed; staying home when sick was reported on 77.5% of the websites; dis

SUBMITTER: Gesualdo F 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC2955000 | biostudies-literature | 2010 Sep

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature