Are Websites about Nutrition of High Quality in the Czech Republic?
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Abstract
Background: According to statistical evaluation, the use of ICT in the Czech population is on a comparable level with other European countries; this evaluation also shows that Czech users are interested in online information about health. The behaviour of users over the last two years has shown their interest in researching health complications and treatments, and a major interest in preventive approaches and information on nutrition. However, the area of nutrition has not been evaluated yet and there is no overview of the quality of such websites.
Objective: The aim of this study is to provide the first overview of websites on nutrition in the Czech Republic, not only describing their technical characteristics but also evaluating the quality of their content. The results highlight the need for changes in this field.
Methods: The website selection was based on positions in the browsers most used in the Czech Republic (Google and Seznam) and the determination of popularity (Google PageRank and Seznam SRank). The selection was completed with the websites of professional nutrition organizations and authorities in the Czech Republic. According to the manual, all websites were evaluated for popularity, formal requirements and content quality by JAMA benchmarks and the Health on the Net Foundation criteria. This was completed with an evaluation of web design in co-operation with a professional web designer, the evaluation of accessibility for visually impaired readers and the evaluation of information readability using our own software working with adjusted algorithms for the Czech language.
Results: Research in progress.
Conclusions: Research in progress. In terms of popularity, professional societies do not hold leading positions in SEPRs (Search Engine Results Page), so their web traffic is not high and the researchers had to add them manually. Many websites of professional organizations have formal shortcomings, outdated web design and problematic readability that substantially reduces the target group. On the other hand, commercial websites or health sections on major Czech servers do not meet many criteria of content quality: the authors are unknown, sources are missing and so on. Accessibility of the websites is also problematic: a large part of the tracked websites can be marked as poorly accessible for visually impaired users and also less accessible for hearing impaired users because of increased readability.
Objective: The aim of this study is to provide the first overview of websites on nutrition in the Czech Republic, not only describing their technical characteristics but also evaluating the quality of their content. The results highlight the need for changes in this field.
Methods: The website selection was based on positions in the browsers most used in the Czech Republic (Google and Seznam) and the determination of popularity (Google PageRank and Seznam SRank). The selection was completed with the websites of professional nutrition organizations and authorities in the Czech Republic. According to the manual, all websites were evaluated for popularity, formal requirements and content quality by JAMA benchmarks and the Health on the Net Foundation criteria. This was completed with an evaluation of web design in co-operation with a professional web designer, the evaluation of accessibility for visually impaired readers and the evaluation of information readability using our own software working with adjusted algorithms for the Czech language.
Results: Research in progress.
Conclusions: Research in progress. In terms of popularity, professional societies do not hold leading positions in SEPRs (Search Engine Results Page), so their web traffic is not high and the researchers had to add them manually. Many websites of professional organizations have formal shortcomings, outdated web design and problematic readability that substantially reduces the target group. On the other hand, commercial websites or health sections on major Czech servers do not meet many criteria of content quality: the authors are unknown, sources are missing and so on. Accessibility of the websites is also problematic: a large part of the tracked websites can be marked as poorly accessible for visually impaired users and also less accessible for hearing impaired users because of increased readability.
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