Page 56 - Health Literacy, eHealth, and Communication: Putting the Consumer First: Workshop Summary

Health Literacy, eHealth, and Communication: Putting the Consumer First: Workshop Summary

PAneL

people might doubt all the information provided to them by such sources
as a drug company or a physician who might have been detailed by a
drug company. What is troubling, she said, is that no one is following the
money trail on dietary supplements. For example, individuals read about
how they can improve their health by taking Vitamin C, or Vitamin E is
marketed in some popular magazine. While there is nothing wrong with
marketing these supplements, somehow individuals fail to think about
the greed factor with the supplements, which are a multi-billion dollar
business. Perhaps one should use individuals’ natural skepticism as an
educational entrée on things such as dietary supplements which deserve
skepticism similar to that directed toward the medical establishment.
There is also the issue of the placebo effect which should be part of the
educational effort
Those are excellent points, Kukafka responded. The idea is that the
website will provide a platform for discourse on such topics. As these
things arise, there will be educational opportunities to correct erroneous
information. But such information cannot be provided “up front” by the
experts because it will then be perceived as not credible. It must be part
of the discourse.
Kukafka was asked how large a pool of interactions was needed to
have a self-correcting group that arrives at the truth through primary
sources as opposed to seeking out experts. She responded that it is not
known what the necessary number is. The available data show that what-
ever the size of the population using a wiki, only a small number of indi-
viduals in that population will actually make edits. One has to be able to
divide the population into those who are making corrections and those
who are only viewing. It is interesting that if one examines the numbers
of hits for wiki sites versus those sites based on health expert design, the
wiki sites tend to draw larger numbers.
Another audience member said that wikis are being used to evaluate
various professionals. For example, in San Francisco a website was estab-
lished recently to evaluate police officers, but it was immediately taken
down. Perhaps there are aspects of wikis that could be used to evaluate
one’s health care providers in terms of their sensitivity or competency in
health literacy.
Yet another audience member said that she was concerned that, with
the use of wikis, someone might actually act on health information before
it is corrected.
Kukafka was asked how liability is being addressed. She responded
that there is a disclaimer on the site and that editorial control group will
be monitoring the content. Asked about how content development for
non-English-speaking populations was proceeding, Kukafka responded
that currently the portal is being developed in English because of the

Copyright National Academy of Sciences. All rights reserved.