ArticleBMC public health2017
An audit of the quality of online immunisation information available to Australian parents.
Article in BMC public health, 2017. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 10 papers.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
10 citing papers in PubMed, 30 citations in OpenAlex.
- The good, the bad, and the ugly: A qualitative evaluation of web-based COVID-19 vaccine communication in Canada.Human vaccines & immunotherapeutics · 2025Article
- The quality of Internet information relating to 2019-nCov transmission control in dental practice.Journal of clinical and experimental dentistry · 2021Article
- A Consent Support Resource with Benefits and Harms of Vaccination Does Not Increase Hesitancy in Parents-An Acceptability Study.Vaccines · 2020Article
- Assessment of Health Information About COVID-19 Prevention on the Internet: Infodemiological Study.JMIR public health and surveillance · 2020Article
- Embedding a Health Literacy Intervention Within Established Parenting Groups: An Australian Feasibility Study.Health literacy research and practice · 2020Article
- Using text mining and sentiment analysis to analyse YouTube Italian videos concerning vaccination.BMC public health · 2020Article
- Evaluating the quality of voice assistants' responses to consumer health questions about vaccines: an exploratory comparison of Alexa, Google Assistant and Siri.BMJ health & care informatics · 2019Article
- [Assessment of health information available online regarding meningococcal B vaccine recommendations].Revista espanola de salud publica · 2018Article
- Local weather is associated with rates of online searches for musculoskeletal pain symptoms.PloS one · 2017Article
- Analysis of the quality of online resources for parents of children who are late to talk.Autism & developmental language impairmentsArticle
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
4 authors at 2 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
backgroundThe Internet is increasingly a source of health information for parents, who use the Internet alongside health care providers for immunisation information. Concerns have been raised about the reliability of online immunisation information, however to date there has been no audit of the quality or quantity of what is available to Australian parents. The objective of this study was to address this gap by simulating a general online search for immunisation information, and assessing the quality and quantity of the web sites returned by the search.
methodsWe used Google trends to identify the most common immunisation search terms used in Australia. The ten most common terms were entered into five search engines and the first ten non-commercial results from each search collated. A quality assessment tool was developed using the World Health Organization Global Advisory Committee on Vaccine Safety (GACVS) criteria for assessing the quality of vaccine safety web sites, and used to assess and score the quality of the sites.
resultsSeven hundred web pages were identified, of which 514 were duplicates, leaving 186 pages from 115 web sites which were audited. Forty sites did not include human immunisation information, or presented personal opinion about individuals, and were not scored. Of the 75 sites quality scored, 65 (87%) were supportive of immunisation, while 10 (13%) were not supportive. The overall mean quality score was 57/100 (range 14/100 to 92/100). When stratified by pro and anti-vaccination stance, the average quality score for pro-vaccine sites was 61/100, while the average score for anti-vaccine sites was 30/100. Pro-vaccine information could be divided into three content groups: generalist overview with little detail; well-articulated and understandable detail; and lengthy and highly technical explanations. The main area found to be lacking in pro-vaccine sites was lack of transparent authorship.
conclusionOur findings suggest a need for information which is easily found, transparently authored, well-referenced, and written in a way that is easily understood.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.