QHII health website attributes

Quality of health information on the internet (QHII)
Health Website Ratings (HWR) project: Rating attributes

For purposes of rating health websites, Health Improvement Institute (HII) and ConsumerReportsWebwatch (CRW) develop and organize criteria according to website "attributes." Currently (in version 3.1 of the HWRI), HII/CRW recognize the following website attributes (listed by HWRI part):

I Transparency (CRW criteria)

1.0 Website identity
2.0 Advertising & sponsorships
3.0 Ease of use & accessibility
4.0 Currency & corrections
5.0 Privacy

II A. Editorial adequacy (HII criteria)

1.0 Coverage & contents
2.0 Authors & interests
3.0 References & resources
4.0 Editorial policies & procedures

II B. If applicable, criteria for the specific type of health website being rated, eg, diet self-help interventions

III Information reliability (the scientific validity of information in website contents) — not evaluated routinely, and, thus, not counted in the "overall score"

IV Design (visual appeal, creativity & aesthetics) — not scored separately (and, thus, not counted in the "overall score").

A website's "overall score" is calculated by weighting each applicable attribute score according to its importance (determined by raters' normalized median weight). Not all attributes apply to all health websites. In this case, the "overall score" (rating) is calculated by applying normalized weights to applicable attributes. Ratings are scores converted to Consumer Reports "blobs." Narratives are a composite of raters' evaluations, edited by CRW/HII. For a detailed description of the methodology used to rate each wave of health websites, visit HealthRatings.org