CDC EVALUATION

CDC Website Evaluation

Vivian Dinh
Dixie State University

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Website Evaluation

In the recent years with the advance technology, more people have turn to the Internet as
their resources for general health care inquiries. Even though there are many health care
resources websites out there that look appealing, and reliable. However, the information on these
websites is not created equal and may not be accurate most of the time. As a health care
provider, I would like to have up to date information on health care issues, prevention, and
treatments to be able to provide the best outcome and quality care for my patients. Its also
important to be able to have reliable resources that I can refer my patient to learn about
prevention, illness, treatments, living healthy, and many mores. Therefore, I have chose to
evaluate the CDC website, because at my work, were using the current information on this site
for up to date prevention, immunizations, and diseases outbreak status to keep our patient safe.
For example, weve used the CDC guideline for the recent Ebola outbreak to help with the
screening, prevention, and treatment of the disease. I would like to evaluate the site for
credibility/authority, appearance and usability, currency, objectivity, financial costs, and tone.
CDC
Relevance of Website
According to the 2015 CAPHIS top 100 list health websites you can trust, the CDC is on
the top of the list for general health resources. The CDC website is relevant to the course
objective because its provide evidence based practice for care delivery. Its also a resource for
the nursing practice as well as consumer to gain knowledge about general health care prevention,
treatment, how to manage healthy living, emergency preparedness, and many more. The website
provide accurate, and up to date information on current health care issues that is going on in the

CDC EVALUATION

world. Its also providing great resources for diseases prevention methods like immunization,
how to find a clinic when traveling, and emergency preparedness.
Description of Criteria
I evaluated the CDC website using the criteria of credibility, appearance/usabililty,
currency, objective, financial costs, and tone. In my opinion, utilizing these criteria to assess the
accuracy, and reliability of the information on the website can assist health care providers like
myself to be able to provide education as well as safe, and quality cares for our patients. The
websites provide information on a wide spectrum of prevention, many diseases, healthy living,
travelers health, emergency preparedness, and many mores. It news offer many useful tips to
prevent, and control the spread of current diseases or health conditions.
Credibility
The CDC is one of the major operating components of the Department of Health and
Human Services (Center for disease control and prevention, 2015). It is a government website
that operate by many doctors and scientists in charge of different departments concentrating on
different concern of global health, occupational safety and health, infectious diseases, public
health preparedness and response, and many more. CDC ranked 517 in the US for popularity
(Alexa, 2015). Its also voted in the 2015 CAPHIS top 100 lists of health websites you can trust
as a reliable resource for the general health. The CDCs laboratories were the first in the world
to identify and report the new 2009 H1N1 virus and tracked the characteristics and speard of the
disease as well as the safety of the vaccine ((Center for disease control and prevention, 2014)
Appearance/Usability
The CDC website appears as a user friendly with organize categories of main topics on
the top of the page with drop down boxes of sub categories as one click their mouse on the

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specific topic. Its also listed the current news on the main page that address the health issues
and concern that is going on in the nation as well as the world. The CDC website provide a wide
range of health issues for different life stages. Its also provide useful tools like finding clinic in
ones area of living as well as finding a clinic when traveling out of the state or country. Beyond
the general health categories, CDC website also have tips and guidelines on emergency
preparedness as well as topics on environmental health, global health, workplace safety and
health, more tools and resources like Healthy People 2020 and data and statistics on health
issues. At the very bottom of the page, there are different links to the CDC social media as well
to the government websites. These links to the social media update daily post on hot general
health topic provide useful knowledge and prevention tips for the public.
Currency
The CDC mission is to work 24/7 to protect America from health, safety and security
threats, both foreign and in the U.S. (Center for disease control and prevention, 2014). The
website general diseases information as well as other categories were organized according to the
year that it was published dated as far back as 2012. The news that was featured on the front
page has been uploaded within the month. Each health topics that display on the website also
include a last reviewed and last updated date on it. The CDC website link to the newsroom
section has the most current up to date news display on it like the weekly flu activity report.
Objectivity
The CDC is a government website with the objective and goal is to protect, cure and
prevent the spread of diseases within the U.S. and globally. The information display on the
website provide an overview of prevention methods for common diseases that are the leading
cause of death within the nation such as cancer, stroke, heart disease and diabetes. Its purpose

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also to make sure to control disease outbreak such as Ebola from spreading around the world
with guidelines for the heath care facility to follow for screening, prevention, and treat the
patient that has been exposed to it. According to the CDC fast fact, the site provide the accurate
information to assist the public in gaining knowledge and be able to take responsibility for their
health as well as decision making.
Financial costs
The CDC website provide access to all the information on the site to the public and health
care provider free of charge. The site received its funding from the government grants
throughout the nation. The website has provided many free of charge useful app for the public to
get on their portable device like CDC faststats on general health issues, CDC antibiotic
guidelines, CDC vaccine schedules, and CDC travelers health. I believe this is a good resource
for the public to have at their fingertips for prevention and treatment guidelines for common
diseases.
Tone
The tone of the information display on the CDC website are realistic providing
information based on evidence base practice and scientific facts. Most of the article on the
website provide simple, and organize information along with visual picture that create a
professional tone to the page creating a trust worthy voice for the site.
Conclusion
With the advance technology of today, where everyone rely on the Internet as a fastest
way to access resource for general health care issues. I believe that the CDC website would be
one of the most reliable resources for the public. The CDC webpage layout has been organized
into specific order for easy access to the information. Its also display the most current health

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care issues, and prevention on the features of the front page to bring the attention to the public.
By using the criteria of credibility, appearance and usability, currency, financial cost, objectivity,
and tone for evaluating this website was a good exercise to help me recognize reliable websites
that I can use as a teaching tools for my patient. Its also a good resource to refer to the public
for general health concern, prevention and disaster preparedness. The website has provide
reliable information with good credibility, the appearance was easy to navigate, it is free to use,
and come with free app and daily post on their social media site with useful tips and prevention
on current health topics, the information on the site has good objectivity, and the overall tone of
the website is realistic and professional. The only disadvantage that I find on this website is that
it does not provide interactive or visual explanation of the diseases and conditions. Since Im a
visual learner, I find its difficult reading or listening to the facts only. It would be helpful if the
CDC will add this features to their website.

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References

Alexa. (2015, October). cdc.gov site overview. Retrieved October 29, 2015, from
http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/cdc.gov
Caphis consumer and patient health information. (2015, September). Retrieved October 30,
2015, from http://caphis.mlanet.org/consumer/top100all.pdf
Center for disease control and prevention. (2014, April 14). CDC 2009-2012 Accomplishments|
About | CDC. Retrieved October 30, 2015, from
http://www.cdc.gov/about/organization/accomplishments.html
Center for disease control and prevention. (2014, April). Mission, role and pledge| About | CDC.
Retrieved October 29, 2015, from http://www.cdc.gov/about/organization/mission.htm
Center for disease control and prevention. (2015, July 24). CDC Organization| About | CDC.
Retrieved October 28, 2015, from http://www.cdc.gov/about/organization/cio.htm
Cornell University. (2015, October). Categories - Evaluating web pages: Questions to consider LibGuides at Cornell University. Retrieved October 29, 2015, from
http://guides.library.cornell.edu/evaluating_Web_pages
UC Berkeley Library. (2012). Evaluating web pages: Techniques to apply & questions to ask.
Retrieved October 29, 2015, from
http://www.lib.berkeley.edu/TeachingLib/Guides/Internet/Evaluate.html