Medical and Consumer Health

Links to useful information on the Internet

Mayo Clinic Health
This consumer health web site from the Mayo Clinic contains an extensive database on diseases and conditions, a Healthy Living Center, healthy lifestyle planners, and drug information. There is a symptom checker and a first aid guide.

American Heart Association (AHA): Delicious Decisions
A site for learning how to eat right, stay fit, and establish good habits for a lifetime. Features the AHA Food Pyramid, grocery shopping advice, recipes, heart-healthy tips for dining out, and suggestions for a fitness routine. From the American Heart Association.

Consumer and Patient Health Information Section (CAPHIS)
Web sites you can trust from the Consumer and Patient Health Information Section (CAPHIS) of the Medical Library Association. These general web sites for consumers and professionals are usually lists of links to other sites, although some contain original material. To find information on a particular disease, each site has either a search engine or a list of topics.

Discovery Health
Included are links to Diseases and Conditions, Sexual Health Center, Pregnancy Center, and Berman and Berman. There are also links to the other Discovery websites, Discovery Kids, BBC America, Discovery Science, Discovery Home, Discovery Wings, Discovery en Espanol, Discovery HD Theater, FitTV, and Discovery School.

Household Products
On this site you will find health and safety information on household products. It discusses safety hazards and adverse effects. You can enter the name of a household product and the site provides explanations and health information related to automotive products, landscaping, pesticides, cleaning supplies, pet care products, materials relating to arts and crafts, personal care and home maintenance.

Hardin MD
At this site you will find a "list of lists" to comprehensive resources in health-related subjects, published by Hardin Library for the Health Sciences at the University of Iowa. There are pictures of diseases and conditions as well as links to other web resources.

Eat Right
With nearly 70,000 members, the American Dietetic Association is the nation's largest organization of food and nutrition professionals. ADA serves the public by promoting optimal nutrition, health and well-being.

MedlinePlus
MEDLINEplus provides up-to-date, quality healthcare information from the world's largest medical library, the National Library of Medicine at the National Institutes of Health in English and Spanish. MedlinePlus brings together authoritative information from NLM, the National Institutes of Health (NIH), and other government agencies and health-related organizations. MedlinePlus also has extensive information about drugs, an illustrated medical encyclopedia, interactive patient tutorials, and latest health news.

DocFinder
Contains the licensing background and disciplinary information of physicians and other health care practitioners in Iowa. This site is based on data from the Iowa Board of Medicine.

HealthFinder
This site offers a free gateway to consumer health and human services information from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services in Spanish and English. Healthfinder links to carefully selected information and Web sites from over 1,500 health-related organizations. There is health news, consumer guides, and information on diseases, injuries, and prescription drugs.

OB Focus
Includes: Prenatal diagnosis: Targeted ultrasound, genetic counseling, and prenatal diagnostic procedures; Management of medical complications of pregnancy: Including diabetes, hypertension and pre-eclampsia, lupus, cardiovascular, pulmonary, and renal diseases; Management of complicated pregnancy: Including diagnosis and management of poly- and oligo-hydramnios, fetal anomalies, intrauterine transfusion, and percutaneous umbilical blood sampling.

Iowa Department of Inspections and Appeals' (DIA) Health Facilities Division (HFD)
This site includes a directory of long-term care facilities and inspection report cards for a wide variety of health care facilities in Iowa. Visitors to this web site will find a variety of useful information to assist them in the selection of a long-term health care provider.

Kids Health
KidsHealth is the largest and most-visited site on the Web providing doctor-approved health information about children from before birth through adolescence. There are sites for parents with practical parenting information, a kids site with homework help, and a teen site with answers, advice and straight talk.

Merck Manual
Based on the Merck Manual, this Merck & Co. publication explains disorders, who is likely to get them, their symptoms, how they're diagnosed, how they might be prevented, and how they can be treated. Information about prognosis is also provided.

Nutrition
This website is geared toward educating the public on healthy eating tips and facts about nutrition. Includes information on health management, food assistance, research, food safety, food facts, and special life cycle sections.

PubMed
PubMed provides access to over 14 million citations in MEDLINE, PreMEDLINE and other related databases, with links to participating online journals. MEDLINE contains bibliographic citations and author abstracts from more than 4,800 biomedical journals published in the United States and 70 other countries. The database contains dating back to the mid-1960's . Coverage is worldwide, but most records are from English-language sources or have English abstracts.

Resources for Health Consumers
This page suggests guidelines for finding the highest quality health information on the web. There are recommended web sites and information on patients’ rights and health records.

The Virtual Hospital: A Digital Library of Health Information
This site provides educational content for patients, health care providers, and students interested in the health sciences. It includes textbooks, pamphlets, and images at both the professional and lay levels. Users may search either the adult or children's hospital content or browse by topic to find information about anatomy and physiology and conditions and diseases. All materials on the site are peer-reviewed; site maintained by the University of Iowa.

WebMD
New features of the website include the WebMD Weight Loss Clinic, the WebMD Health Manager, and the WebMD Fertility Center. You can also search using general terms about specific health conditions.

Iowa Public Health Tracking
The Iowa Immunization Program: Mapping Exemption Rates by School District