Overcoming the linguistic divide: a barrier to consumer health information
Date
2009Author
Boden, Catherine
Publisher
NRC Research PressType
ArticleRefereed Paper
Metadata
Show full item recordAbstract
Seeking health information online has become very popular. Despite this popularity, health consumers face many barriers to successfully retrieving good quality health information. This paper reviews the literature on the linguistic divide between health consumers and consumer health information. Consumer health vocabularies (CHV) and natural language processing (NLP) show potential for bridging the divide, thereby improving recall and precision from information retrieval systems. Developers of digital libraries can incorporate CHV and (or) NLP as help tools to facilitate health consumerd's search success. Deeper issues, such as health consumers's mental representation of medical domain, must also be addressed in future research for optimal benefit from such help tools.
Citation
Boden, C. (2009). Overcoming the linguistic divide: a barrier to consumer health information. Journal of the Canadian Health Libraries Association, 30(3), 75-80.Other Identifier
http://article.pubs.nrc-cnrc.gc.ca/RPAS/rpv?hm=HInit&calyLang=eng&journal=jchla&volume=30&afpf=c09-020.pdfSubject
health consumers
health information
natural language processing
consumer health vocabularies