Safety and security on the Internet
Challenges and advances in Member States
Based on the findings of the second global survey on eHealth
WHO Global Observatory for eHealth series - Volume 4, December 2011
Authors: Kevin Clauson and Karen Vieira,
International expert reviewers: Erin Holmes, Lana Ivanitskaya, Pauline Sweetman, and Michael Veronin.
WHO reviewers Najeeb Al Shorbaji and Joan Dzenowagis.
Financial support and collaboration of the Rockefeller Foundation
Available online PDF [92p.] at: http://bit.ly/tLLL3Z
“…..The Internet has moved beyond an educational and research tool that once served as a social network for a few elite scientists and has been transformed into a commerce and health care juggernaut now accessible to much of the planet. However, this transformation has not been free of complications and challenges.
Safety and security on the Internet: challenges and advances in Member States is the fourth volume of the WHO Global Observatory for eHealth series. It explores controversial and complex issues facing society such as Internet pharmacies and their control and regulation, mechanisms to combat escalating Internet security threats, government strategies to protect children and adolescents online, and practices to control quality and reliability of online health information.
This publication provides the detailed results and analysis from the second global survey on eHealth. It emphasizes the need for citizen- and institution- government-related action and suggests approaches on how to build on existing initiatives and navigating the obstacles along the way…”
Table of contents
Executive summary
1. Introduction
1.1. Internet pharmacies .
1.2 Internet security
Spam
Viruses and malware
Phishing scams
1.3 Online safety of children and adolescents - Unsupervised access to children and teens
1.4 Digital literacy and online health information quality -Accuracy and reliability of online health information
Online Health Information in developing countries
2. Review of the literature
2.1 Internet pharmacies
Methodology
Safety of medications purchased online: is there cause for concern?
Availability of prescription-only drugs and lack of clinical oversight
Medical questionnaires
Internet pharmacy locations
Counterfeit and substandard medications
Packaging and labelling
2.2 Internet security
Methodology
Pharmaceutical and health-related spam, spim, and spit
Does spam affect consumer behaviour?
Reliability and validity of health products purchased from spam e-mails
2.3 Online safety of children and adolescents
Methodology
Are children and adolescents at risk when online? .
Children and adolescents online without supervision
The link between children online and child pornography
2.4 Digital literacy and online health information quality
Methodology
Searching for health information online: is quality content easily accessible?
The role of search engines
How do health information seekers search for information? .
Quality of search engine results
Do Internet searches retrieve desired health information?
3. Analysis and discussion of survey results
4. Conclusions
5. References
Appendix 1. Methodology of the second global survey on eHealth
Purpose .
Survey implementation
Survey instrument .
Survey development
Data Collector
Preparation to launch the survey
Survey
Limitations
Data processing
Response rate
Response rate by WHO region
Response rate by World Bank income group
References .
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