Department of Surgery, Austin Hospital, University of Melbourne, Melbourne, VIC, Australia.
Young Urology Researchers Organisation (YURO), Melbourne, Australia.
World J Urol. 2019 Jun;37(6):1043-1047. doi: 10.1007/s00345-019-02670-5. Epub 2019 Feb 12.
Men's health research covers a broad range of topics. Men and women face different barriers to health, with men almost universally having a lower life expectancy than women. Access to high-quality information on men's health topics is potentially an important part of engaging men with medical services. We aim to assess the quality of men's health resources available on the internet across 4 developed countries using a tier-based rating system as well as the World Health Organisation Health on the Net (HON) standards.
The Google search engine imbedded with the Health on the Net toolbar was used to assess 357 websites across Australia, Canada, America and United Kingdom using the search term 'men's health'. The websites were further subdivided into 3 tiers by 2 independent investigators, with tier 1 websites defined as government or health organisation sponsored, tier 2 websites defined as being sponsored by health services such as private clinics and insurance providers, and tier 3 websites being websites that did not meet criteria for the first 2 tiers.
Overall, 28% of websites were rated as tier 1, 26% as tier 2 and 46% as tier 3. The HONcode accreditation was overall 39% of tier 1 websites. The majority of websites reviewed were in the tier 3 category, and 35% of overall websites being non-health or non-medically related.
The lack of 'relevant' and HONcode-accredited websites relating to men's health should be appreciated by health care professionals.
男性健康研究涵盖了广泛的主题。男性和女性面临不同的健康障碍，男性的预期寿命几乎普遍低于女性。获得高质量的男性健康主题信息可能是吸引男性使用医疗服务的重要组成部分。我们旨在使用基于层次的评级系统以及世界卫生组织的健康网络（HON）标准，评估 4 个发达国家互联网上男性健康资源的质量。
使用嵌入 Health on the Net 工具栏的 Google 搜索引擎，使用搜索词“men's health”评估澳大利亚、加拿大、美国和英国的 357 个网站。这些网站由 2 名独立研究人员进一步细分为 3 个层次，第 1 层次的网站定义为政府或健康组织赞助的网站，第 2 层次的网站定义为私人诊所和保险公司等健康服务赞助的网站，第 3 层次的网站是不符合前 2 个层次标准的网站。
总体而言，28%的网站被评为第 1 层次，26%的网站被评为第 2 层次，46%的网站被评为第 3 层次。HONcode 认证总体上占第 1 层次网站的 39%。审查的大多数网站都属于第 3 层次类别，而 35%的网站总体上与健康或医学无关。
医疗保健专业人员应该意识到，缺乏与男性健康相关的“相关”和 HONcode 认证网站。
