 HHS NEWS
U.S. SURGEON GENERAL LAUNCHES NEW HEALTH RESOURCES AT GOVERNMENT GATEWAY WEB SITE Alternative Health and Spanish Language Online Resources Washington DC – Surgeon General David Satcher today unveiled new features and services at http://www.healthfinder.gov, the government gateway Web site for health information. healthfinder® helps consumers find reliable health information through the Internet’s World Wide Web and brings under one umbrella the vast health information resources of the federal government and its many partners. healthfinder® has served more than 4.5 million visitors since it was launched nearly two years ago. "healthfinder® offers reliable and easily searchable resources for the rapidly growing population of Internet users seeking health or medical information. With the growth of the Hispanic-American population, it is important that we offer easy access to health information resources in Spanish," Surgeon General Satcher stated. "healthfinder® can now also meet the information needs of those interested in alternative medicine." Dr. Satcher made the announcement at the opening session of the 16th Annual National Preventive Medicine Meeting, taking place in Washington, DC. The enhancements to healthfinder’s® broad range of resources and capabilities that were announced today include:
healthfinder® offers rapid access to over 5000 links (including 400 government Web sites), that provide reliable health advice and information to help consumers stay healthy, confront illness, and care for their families. healthfinder’s® core offerings include online and print publications, libraries, clearinghouses, referral services, research and clinical information, databases, discussion and self-help groups. Other resources of special interest include information on how to evaluate online health information, and on how to choose quality care and complementary therapies. Top search topics during 1998 were cancer, diabetes, Medicare, AIDS, heart disease, nutrition, depression, food safety, and arthritis. healthfinder’s® attributes include searches from any page, and key word and full-text searching, allowing an unlimited number of interest areas to be searched. The site’s easy-to-use search interface works equally well with graphical and text-only Web browsers. On average more than 260,000 people search healthfinder’s® resources each month. Since January 1998, healthfinder’s® has received more than 60 million "hits." Since healthfinder® was launched on April 15, 1997 by Vice President Gore and HHS Secretary Shalala, it has been frequently cited as one of the easiest to use and most comprehensive sites for consumers looking for health and medical information on the World Wide Web, and has received over 34 awards for excellence. To reach healthfinder® go to http://www.healthfinder.gov. Those without Internet access are encouraged to check their local libraries or call HHS’s National Health Information Center at 1-800-336-4797. HHS is the main sponsor of the National Preventive Medicine Meeting’s plenary session "Moving Public Health into the Information Technology Century," as well as of the Partnerships’ Technology Games, which are designed to promote the development of high quality interactive health communications. The Annenberg School for Communication and the Annenberg Public Policy Center of the University of Pennsylvania, under Dean Kathleen Hall Jamieson, are also sponsors of the Partnerships’ Technology Games. healthfinder® is managed by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ Office of Disease Prevention and Health Promotion in collaboration with other HHS agencies. # # #
Partnerships for Health in the New Millennium January 24-28, 2000 Omni Shoreham Hotel, Washington, DC Updated: 05/01/08 |