About the Arctic Health Links

The Arctic Health web site links users to evaluated, authoritative resources on health topics that are especially relevant to the Arctic. The emphasis is on providing access to full-text publications produced by NIH Institutes and other government organizations. Current articles on various health topics are retrievable from the National Library of Medicine's PubMed database. Resources listed on the site are selected primarily from:

• U.S. government agencies, and some state and local agencies;
• national voluntary, non-profit, and professional organizations serving the public interest;
• universities, other educational institutions, and libraries; and
• some commercial resources that provide health information free of charge as a public service.

The web site also includes sections devoted to traditional medicine, environmental health, injury prevention, research and publications, governments and organizations, telehealth, and the Arctic Council.

Link Selection Guidelines

The Internet can be a valuable source of information, but the quality of information on the web is highly variable and sometimes hard to judge. It can be difficult to identify reliable, scientifically sound, and safe information among the many resources available. Using standard criteria to evaluate sites helps screen out misleading, inaccurate, and false information. The sites included on the Arctic Health web site are pre-screened and evaluated using such standard criteria. However, it is also important for each user to evaluate sites, using the criteria that mean the most to him or her. Every user needs to judge the value, accuracy, and usefulness of the information for themselves.

The selection guidelines used in evaluating links to web pages are listed below.

• Quality, authority, and accuracy of content
  • The source of the content is established, respected and dependable.
  • The information provided is appropriate to the audience level, well-organized and easy to use.
  • Information is from primary resources (i.e., textual material, abstracts, web pages).
  • Lists of links are evaluated/reviewed/quality-filtered.
• The purpose of the web page is educational and is not selling a product or service. Most content is available at no charge.
• Availability and maintenance of the web page .
  • The web site is consistently available.
  • Links from the site are maintained.
  • The source for the contents of the web page(s) and the entity responsible for maintaining the web site (webmaster, organization, creator of the content) is clear.
  • Information is current or an update date is included.
  • Registration is not required to view most of the information on the site.
• Special Features
  • The site provides unique information to the topic with a minimum of redundancy and overlap between resources.
  • The site contains special features such as graphics/diagrams, glossary, or other unique information.
  • The content of the site is accessible to persons with disabilities.

Additional background information can be found at:

• Introduction
• History
• Link Selection Guidelines
• Definitions