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If the last few years have not changed your perception on trustworthy resources, I am not sure what will. We have all been inundated with the ideas of “Fake News,” deception in the medical community and election systems, as well the blame game when it comes to our health and lives in general. To say that everyone has been affected would be true unless you were Tom Hanks on Castaway for the last half of the decade. Who should we trust? Who can we trust? This is a difficult topic because people feel very strong about opinions on these questions.

I am going to talk specifically about how medical resources are vetted and how to help you choose who you are comfortable trusting. I know people will disagree but I assure you, the entire medical community is not out to harm or track you. There will always be rogue persons in every field, however, safeguards and peer reviews are in place to try to stop the spread of misinformation.

One thing to always keep in mind is that healthcare is an ever changing field. As new discoveries are made, recommendations and treatments change. This is why medicine is a “practice.” We update our homes when new, better versions of things like lightbulbs come out. Shoot, we even update our phones with the latest and greatest like every year because Apple discovered something new and better! We do the same for medications and procedures. This is where discovery and science come in. People dedicate their whole lives to finding better treatments and cures for diseases. Keep reading to find out more about how the information gets to the public and what sources you can trust.

First off, mainstream news is more of an entertainment news source. They are able to take a small piece of information or one person’s view or opinion and broadcast it. There is no scientific realm behind this. Social media is the exact same. One person can take their view or experience and describe it as if it were a fact. Always be wiry of these sources. One person’s experience is never a fact. It is simply their experience or opinion. There is a whole field of math called statistics that has formulas to determine likelihood of one person’s experience being able to become the general population’s experience. We have seen this may times when new videos of police brutality are revealed. One persons angle on the camera may catch new evidence and change the entire storyline and outcome.

In order to determine something is able to be generalized (more factual and able to be true for a large group), you have to look at all of the factors. For instance, we know that certain medication responses can not be generalized from adult to child or male to female. Our bodies and hormones are different. Some medications work differently in different ethnicities. When these medications are studied, in order for the study results to be deemed reliable, they have to study it and compare different factors. For example, the covid-19 vaccine. It was first studied on a random group of adults 18+. Then once the dose, number of injections and short term side effects were determined, they were able to start studies on younger groups. They would have to then determine these same results compared to the adult group because children’s bodies are different and may need different doses, have different metabolism of the vaccine and may have have different side effects. Once this age group was deemed safe to administer, then they take what they know and start studying even younger groups.

Lets talk about impeding factors

You have to determine who is doing the study. Many studies are done by groups with conflicts of interest. For example, the sugar industry has been known to do studies on the benefits of sugar in the body. However, I am sure the American Diabetes Association will be able to disprove these studies.

People argue that the pharmaceutical industry only does studies on drugs that will benefit their bottom line. This may be true, but the medical community is studying cures. Keep in mind that until a cure is found, treatments may be the only option. As much as I would love for them to find a cure for asthma, until they do, I am thankful for my albuterol inhaler. I have known and worked with physicians who have spent their life work studying the respiratory system and exploring cures for common respiratory diseases.

So we know we have to look at who is behind the study through funding or doing the research. What about who is studied? We know we have to have a sample that fits the community of need. For instance, you wouldn’t want to make medical decisions from resources who have only done studies on people with no similiar factors (weight, age, gender, ethnicity, geography, etc). There are so many factors that go into determining generalizability of a study.

Finally, who is reviewing the results? Do not trust opinions. When it comes to your healthcare, you want both experience and sound science that is proven by data and replicable. Most studies, medications, vaccines and procedures go through years and sometimes even decades of study and tweaking before they are available to you (except on emergency basis, as we have all learned). Studies are scrutinized by scientists and experts all over their field. Trained medical professionals actually study how to read research and how to interpret it. Before articles are published into scientific journals, they are scrutinized not only by the publishers but multiple peers. Many studies are then replicated to see if they can get the same results.

Medicine is a field where new discoveries are not taken lightly. It is hard to find a new treatment.

Lets give some examples of trustworthy sites. I encourage people to do their own research but again, research sources that are already vetted.

My favorites and most commonly used resources are as follows:

• American Academy of Pediatrics (of course I am a peds person!)

• AAFP American Academy of Family Physicians
• www. Healthychildren.org

• Most disease associations such as the American Heart Association or American Diabetes Association
• Center for Disease Control and Prevention (I know this one has been controversial lately, but it has a LOT of really good information on non-covid related topics and diseases (www.cdc.org)

• Le Leche League (Breast feeding resource)

• Mayo Clinic and Cleveland Clinic (both research teaching hospitals)

• Peer reviewed medical journals (JAMA- Journal of the American Medical Association) most of these you have to have pricey subscriptions but sometimes some of the articles are copied in public places.

• Up-To-Date- Clinical research review of medical journals. Provides overview of research out there and gives best practices for healthcare providers

Places to NOT get your healthcare information from:

• Any form of social media

• Mainstream news

• Wikipedia

• Siri

• Nonpublished research (true researchers are very eager to publish their results. When research does not get published it likely is not reproducible or found to be flawed or data is misinterpreted in some way).

These lists are by no means all inclusive. There are many resources out there. Just remember, any data can be skewed to make a point in your favor. Be skeptical and use common sense.

Remember, science and medicine are ever changing. We have to adapt. Finding trustworthy resources is key to health and survival.