Major search engines, best medical search engines, clearinghouse of resources
and recommended search procedures.

LONG-TERM RECOVERY FROM CATASTROPHIC ILLNESS: An On-Going Study of Issues and Resources from Crisis to Recovery Website links can be found in text
and in website lists at the end of chapters.  Go to Recovery.

CAREGIVERS DIRECTORY FREE AND AFFORDABLE RESOURCES FOR
CATASTROPHIC ILLNESS RECOVERY AND INDEPENDENT LIVING.  A comprehensive listing of websites by subject headings derived from keywords.  Many of the websites listed in the Directory include site-specific search engines.  Go to Directory of Websites .

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How to use a Search Engine

Look for keywords in the Keyword Finder and use them to search the internet search engines.  Search engines are listed below, following the Keyword Finder, with  descriptions of their major features.  The easiest way to search the
internet is to simply put the terms in the address window of your browser
(above, where it currently says www.selfhelprecovery.net).  This will start the Microsoft search engine.  Google and other search engines can be installed permanently as a toolbar.  Just go to the search engine and follow directions.
 

Medical Search Engines
(See article, 10 Best Medical Web Sites, below)

Hardin Meta Directory of Internet Health Sources
www.lib.uiowa.edu/hardin/md

Health and Medical Resources
http://www.esrl.lib.md.us/internet/16 

Healthfinder
www.healthfinder.gov

Medhunt
www.hon.ch

Medical publications
www.accessmedbooks.com

MEDLINEplus: www.medlineplus.gov

MedWeb at Emory University
www.medweb.emory.edu/medweb

National Institute for Neurological Disorders and Stroke information site
http://www.ninds.nih.gov/health_and_medical/disorders/ceraneur_doc.htm

New York Online Access to Health (NOAH)
www.noah-health.org

Specialized Search Engines
Measure 4 Measure
Problem solving websites
http://www.wolinskyweb.net/measure.htm

Major Search Engines
www.altavista.digital.com
Massive and fast indexer good for very specific searches.  Excellent for finding scientific information.  Uses case matching to find proper nouns.

http://www.dogpile.com/
Dogpile is a meta-search engine that searches the Internet's top search engines such as About, Ask Jeeves, FAST, FindWhat, Google, LookSmart, Overture and many more. With one single, powerful search engine, you get more relevant and comprehensive results.
 
www.excite.com
Returns a small number of relevant hits with summaries.  Allows "query by example" to locate similar pages.

www.google.com
The content of the Google directory is based on the Open Directory and is enhanced using Google's own technology.  Enables users to search the Web, Usenet, and images. Features include Page Rank, caching and translation.

www.hotbot.com
Fast and powerful with ranked results and many options for defining a search.  Limits search by date and programming language.  Can search by domain, such
as ".edu," or ".com."

www.infoseek.com
Conducts parallel searches, merges the results, removes redundancies and
clusters the results.

www.looksmart.com
Organizes search results in a newsstand format for ease of use.

www.lycos.com
Good for locating images, music and video, with an option to search the top 5 percent reviewed websites, or by subject channels with short descriptions of
sites and overviews of broad topics.

www.magellan.com
A smaller database containing descriptive reviews of sites.

www.metacrawler.com
Searches and integrates major search engines to give an exhaustive list of resources.  Can search by content.

www.webcrawler.com
A smaller database with relevance rankings, includes category channels to
browse, or Product Finder search for easy online shopping.

www.yahoo.com
A subject tree directory with short descriptions of sites, giving an overview of broad topics.

http://www.wlu.edu/~library/usgovsearch.html
Search U.S. Government websites.
 

PC Magazine (10 Best Medical Web Sites)
January 4, 2000 issue, pages 223-230.

Virtual Health Medical Web Sites, Doug Beizer.

"Many more of us are taking an increasingly active role in maintaining and improving our
own health than ever before and therefore, not surprisingly, health and medical web
sites are a very popular category. Taking care of your health and medical needs via the
web may never reach the do-it-yourself level of other web sites, like those that help
you buy and sell stocks. But these sites have valuable tools that can assist you in living a healthful life. Here we evaluate ten of the top health and medical web sites, in relation
to the most popular tasks."

"Many sites have resources for aiding you with lifestyle changes (such as starting an
exercise program or quitting smoking). These sites also can be used for purposes such as diagnosing a medical problem or learning how to live with a chronic condition."

"Like nearly every other web site these days, each site we looked at for this story wants
to be a portal in this case, your portal to everything related to health and medical issues.
So you'll find lots of standard web fare: news headlines, community features (chat rooms and message boards), e-mail newsletters, and commerce. Many sites let you create a "My" page, customized to display the information you're most interested in viewing (some
even mix in such non-health features as stock portfolios and web-based e-mail."

"We found that one of the biggest factors separating these sites is how they integrate content. For example, if you read an article about new treatments for migraine headaches, does the site easily link you to a diagnosis tool for migraines? Does it lead you directly to information on migraines from its library? And what about chat rooms and message boards
on the subject? Even more important, if a site sells the remedy for what ails you, does it make it easy for you to find and buy that remedy?"

"The other big difference among the sites is how they organize content. Many sites pull their data from the same sources news from Reuters, for example so organization is key.
If you visit a site every day, then organizing news stories by date may be fine. But if
you're looking for information on a specific subject, you might do better with a site that organizes news by topic."

"Ultimately, you should probably use a combination of sites to get the best content and
tools available today. And we urge you to be aware that, as with other web sites, not all health and medical sites are completely independent. Check for corporate sponsors and partnerships to gauge relative subjectivity, and be careful to differentiate ad content
from informational content."

For the complete article, see the print edition or try ProQuest Direct.