CDC Credibility paper
Credibility of the CDC Website
Jamie Wadas
Chamberlain College of Nursing
CDC.gov is a credible, easy accessible website that is the online channel that provides the public with reliable health information on many health subjects some of which include, “Data and Statistics, Healthy Living, and Injury, Violence and Safety” (CDC,2014). The website provides information to groups such as students and educators, healthcare providers and individuals who are researching health issues (CDC, 2014). To find the CDC website one can us any search engine, Google or Yahoo as an example, or even just type in the web address, or host name, www.cdc.gov to get to the home page of the website. The reason for using this website is because the information on this website has health care information where a nurse, like myself, can read the updated health information that has been released.
When proving that a website is credible there are 5 criteria the website needs to include such as: the authority of the website, objectivity of the website, how easy it is to navigate the site, and privacy and security policies (Chamberlain College of Nursing, 2014). An easy way to remember what has to be involved in evaluating a website for credibility can be found in the acronym, WWWDOT, which stands for: Who, Why, When, Does, Organization and To-do (Zhang, Duke, Jimenez, 2011).
To start with, one needs to look at the”who” of the article otherwise known as the author. For the CDC website the author of it is the Center for Disease Control and Prevention which is a Department of Health and Human Services. The website is maintained by the U.S Government (CDC, 2014).
The next area in evaluating the credibility of a website is the “why” or “when” which refers to the objectivity of the website. “If your page provides accurate information with limited advertising and it is objective in presenting the
Jamie Wadas
Chamberlain College of Nursing
CDC.gov is a credible, easy accessible website that is the online channel that provides the public with reliable health information on many health subjects some of which include, “Data and Statistics, Healthy Living, and Injury, Violence and Safety” (CDC,2014). The website provides information to groups such as students and educators, healthcare providers and individuals who are researching health issues (CDC, 2014). To find the CDC website one can us any search engine, Google or Yahoo as an example, or even just type in the web address, or host name, www.cdc.gov to get to the home page of the website. The reason for using this website is because the information on this website has health care information where a nurse, like myself, can read the updated health information that has been released.
When proving that a website is credible there are 5 criteria the website needs to include such as: the authority of the website, objectivity of the website, how easy it is to navigate the site, and privacy and security policies (Chamberlain College of Nursing, 2014). An easy way to remember what has to be involved in evaluating a website for credibility can be found in the acronym, WWWDOT, which stands for: Who, Why, When, Does, Organization and To-do (Zhang, Duke, Jimenez, 2011).
To start with, one needs to look at the”who” of the article otherwise known as the author. For the CDC website the author of it is the Center for Disease Control and Prevention which is a Department of Health and Human Services. The website is maintained by the U.S Government (CDC, 2014).
The next area in evaluating the credibility of a website is the “why” or “when” which refers to the objectivity of the website. “If your page provides accurate information with limited advertising and it is objective in presenting the