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Accuracy of weight loss information in Spanish search engine results on the internet
Author(s) -
Cardel Michelle I.,
Chavez Sarah,
Bian Jiang,
Peñaranda Eribeth,
Miller Darci R.,
Huo Tianyao,
Modave François
Publication year - 2016
Publication title -
obesity
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.438
H-Index - 199
eISSN - 1930-739X
pISSN - 1930-7381
DOI - 10.1002/oby.21646
Subject(s) - weight loss , the internet , medicine , quality (philosophy) , quality score , government (linguistics) , information loss , world wide web , computer science , obesity , artificial intelligence , business , metric (unit) , philosophy , linguistics , epistemology , marketing
Objective To systematically assess the quality of online information related to weight loss that Spanish speakers in the U.S. are likely to access. Methods This study evaluated the accessibility and quality of information for websites that were identified from weight loss queries in Spanish and compared this with previously published results in English. The content was scored with respect to five dimensions: nutrition, physical activity, behavior, pharmacotherapy, and surgical recommendations. Results Sixty‐six websites met eligibility criteria (21 commercial, 24 news/media, 10 blogs, 0 medical/government/university, 11 unclassified sites). Of 16 possible points, mean content quality score was 3.4 (SD = 2.0). Approximately 1.5% of sites scored greater than 8 (out of 12) on nutrition, physical activity, and behavior. Unsubstantiated claims were made on 94% of the websites. Content quality scores varied significantly by type of website ( P < 0.0001) with unclassified websites scoring the highest (mean = 6.3, SD = 1.4) and blogs scoring the lowest (mean = 2.2, SD = 1.2). All content quality scores were lower for Spanish websites relative to English websites. Conclusions Weight loss information accessed in Spanish Web searches is suboptimal and relatively worse than weight loss information accessed in English, suggesting that U.S. Spanish speakers accessing weight loss information online may be provided with incomplete and inaccurate information.