Introduction to Nursing
Las Vegas Health is a website that was established to provide the latest health information not only to American citizens from Las Vegas but also to all kinds of people around the world. There are two types of information that the site visitors can find across the entire website: health information about some of the common health issues, and the latest news regarding health in Las Vegas and in continental America.
It appears that the volume of health news and information that website visitors can find in this website is fairly limited. That flaw could however be attributed to the primary purpose of the establishment of this website. Nevertheless, for citizens of Las Vegas, the Las Vegas Health website could definitely be one the most complete health information and news website they could ever find.
Every page is moderated by the administrators and editors who we presume work for the local government of Nevada. Based on that and on the type of information present in their website, the website seems to be reliable in terms of correctness and accuracy.
Aside from common health information and news, review journals can also be found in their website. The presence of journals, which are most likely peer and institutionally-reviewed, adds up to their credibility as a provider of concrete and correct health information.
Southern Nevada Health District (southernnevadahealthdistrict.org)
The Southern Nevada Health District’s website is a website built to promote and protect the health, wellness, and environment of citizens living in Southern Nevada and its visitors. It provides a wide range of information about health to anyone who will visit the website. Citizens living in the Southern Nevada area will most likely be the ones who will frequently visit their webpages.
The website basically contains health information like general information and tips about an existing health and environmental issue in Southern Nevada. The website showcases a wide diversity of health topics. It even has a comprehensive A-Z directory of different health topics due to the sheer amount of available information. In terms of the reliability and correctness, it would be safe to assume that the information we could find in this website are accurate and authentic considering the fact that it is a website run by professional health professionals working for the local government.
The Board of Health monitors the website and ensures that every bit of information that readers could read are accurate. Some of the information in the website is not well-updated. Some of the issues present in their website were either solved already or does not exist anymore. The page regarding the spread of the H1N1 influenza for example, has long been solved yet it still stays on the top lists of topics. It may actually serve as a reference that readers may use to enlighten themselves about how the influenza strain affected the South Nevadan area but it would have been better if they were able to put it not on the hot list of issues but rather on an archive of obsolete pages.
All in all, we could say that this website is complete, at least based on the criteria that it was made for Southern Nevadan citizens, and credible in terms of accuracy and correctness with some degree of outdated-ness.
North County Times (nctimes.com)
North County Times’ website was practically designed to provide health information that is relevant to all citizens of the United States. The types of information the administrators usually publish in the website are those that have something to do with the latest health issues in the U.S. like the West Nile Outbreak occurring in small counties for example. They have a complete and comprehensive page about that issue in their website.
The forecast contains specific information about what happened in the West Nile Outbreak, when it started, the mortality and mortality rate and statistics. The website also provides information about how people could take care of their health. Relating it to the West Nile Outbreak case, the website contains information how people could avoid being infected with the virus and possibly spare their life.
The health news and information are forecasted in web-page forms by credible writers with presumably strong backgrounds in allied medicine. The site also has a specific “contact us” page which contains contact information of the website administrators in case a visitor or a subscriber has something to ask from the writer or whoever he wants to address his questions to.
Most of the information that can be found in the website is up to date perhaps because the administrators have decided to focus more on health news rather than on general information about health or trivia about health. Overall, the website can be considered a credible provider of health information.
WebMD
WebMD is not really a website for doctors. It is a website that was built for all. It contains virtually all types of general information about health. Most of the pages were written in a way that could easily be understood by ordinary people, especially those who do not have any form of background in medicine or any other field closely related to medicine. Almost a hundred percent of the webpages that a visitor could find here is health-related. Readers can find relevant and accurate information about almost any type of disease. Information from simple illnesses such as flu and fever up to the most dreadful of diseases such as cancer and osteoporosis can be found at WebMD’s website.
Aside from general information about health pathologies, WebMD also contains lots of pages for the latest news in the health and medical field. Just like the North County Times website, it also contains a particular page about the deadly spread of the West Nile virus which already caused the death of over 40 people and the illness of hundreds of others.
Comparing all the four websites we have critiqued, WebMD is by far the most complete simply because of the diversity of information that readers can find on their website. All of their pages can be viewed by everyone without having to pay even a single penny. It is also fairly easy to navigate in the website considering the volume of information present. All articles and news are written by credible authors who are more often than not Doctors of Medicine in real life or have finished a course related to medicine and biology.
Every page is also regularly reviewed and updated by the authors who collaborate with their editors who also have degrees that are directly related to medicine. Every page where a health information or news can be found also contains the name of the author and the editor in charge of that particular page. If there is one website that we could consider the most credible, accurate, and updated, among the first three websites we have reviewed, it would be WebMD.
Works Cited
Las Vegas Health. (2012). Las Vegas Health. Stephens Media.
Southern Nevada Health District. (2012). Southern Nevada Health District. Nevada State Health Division.
Doheny, K. (2012). West Nile Virus: Who’s at Risk. WebMD Information and Resources.
North County Times. (2012). North County Times Home Page.
