We are graduate students, librarians and researchers who have been studying real-life outcomes of online health information for a decade. We also regularly search and use online health information to manage our own health and well-being, as well as that of our families and friends. We are passionate about citizen and patient empowerment, specifically helping people make informed health decisions.
Online Health Information Aid (OHIA) provides tips and resources on searching, evaluating, and using online health information.
This website aims to improve skills and confidence in finding trustworthy health information online, enabling positive outcomes while reducing negative ones. Our ultimate goal is to support lifelong learning and empower people to participate in their own health care.
OHIA was developed based on research evidence and designed with users like you. We intend to update this website based on your feedback. Please reach out and help us improve it.
Pierre Pluye: Outside family activities and hiking, Pierre’s research passion is information. His research aims to better understand and improve online health information outcomes, including outcomes for clinicians, managers, patients and all citizens. He is a medical doctor with a PhD in health promotion, Professor in the Department of Family Medicine at McGill University, and Fellow of the Canadian Academy of Health Sciences.
Vera Granikov: A health research librarian in the Department of Family Medicine and a PhD candidate in the School of Information Studies, at McGill University. Vera is always fired up about information literacy and informed decision-making, which leads her to initiate exciting projects in her community. She thinks she has been successful because her son’s first question when faced with new information is “How do you know?”.
Reem El Sherif: A PhD candidate in the Department of family medicine at McGill University and was a general practitioner in another lifetime. Because of her background, Reem frequently has to search for online health information for her family and friends when they ask her about health stuff, and she has to send them trustworthy information to refute some of the fake health posts they share on Facebook.
Carrie Dai: A PhD candidate at McGill School of Information Studies. Carrie has a Master of Information Studies and always finds solace in libraries and museums. Her research interests lie in the field of human-computer interaction. She focuses on usability studies for older users and assistive technologies for people with dementia.
Virginie Paquet: Master’s student at the École de bibliothéconomie et des sciences de l’information of the Université de Montréal. Being naturally curious and a trivia games enthusiast, Virginie likes to learn new things and is constantly on the lookout for information on different subjects. She is interested in the way scientific information is disseminated and wants to make it easier to find and understand.
This website would not be possible without the ongoing support of our project collaborators (in alphabetical order): Malik Altakrori, Fabio Balli, Bernard Burnand, Mathieu Bujold, Sophie Desroches, Francesca Frati, Maria Cristiano Galvao, Roland Grad, Quan Nha Hong, France Légaré & Isabelle Vedel.
We are grateful to the participants of usability tests who contributed their time and shared valuable insights, editors, and our web developers appwapp. We would also like to acknowledge the support of the following organizations:
