Finding reliable health information online

Your cancer team or GP can give you the most detailed and personalised information about your general health. They have information about your individual medical history, as well as any tests, diagnosis or treatments you have had. But you might also want to use the internet to find more information about health. You might search for health information:

• to get some basic tips about how to treat or deal with a minor health problem
• as additional support following an appointment with someone in your healthcare team
• to help make health decisions such as whether to have screening, treatments or vaccinations
• to find local health services such as GP surgeries, sexual health clinics or private medical services.

The Patient Information Forum (PIF) TICK is a logo that appears on health information web pages and printed information such as leaflets, booklets or posters. When you see the PIF TICK on health information, it shows that the information met certain strict quality checks. You may see it on some health charity web pages as well as on some content from individual creators. It means that:

• the information is written based on the most up-to-date medical evidence
• the people writing or checking the information have medical expertise
• people living with or affected by the health topic have been involved in developing the information.

The PIF TICK looks like this:

Macmillan is proud to be a member of PIF and to have been awarded the PIF TICK quality mark.

• Check for quality logos like the PIF TICK or the blue panel on YouTube.
• Check who wrote the information. Health information should be written by a health professional, such as a doctor or nurse. They may be an individual, or part of a health organisation such as the NHS, or a national health charity like Macmillan or the British Heart Foundation.
• Check if the information is right for where you live. Health information can vary between countries. For example, different treatments may be available in the USA or Australia. Sometimes health services can vary between the 4 nations of the UK.
• Check if the information is balanced. Good information will explain both the benefits and the risks.
• Look for mentions of medical evidence. For example, the content might refer to studies or research usually done by a hospital or university.
• Look at the details of any research mentioned. Research that has only been done on animals or in a laboratory is not evidence that a treatment works in humans.
• Check to see if there is a review date. Good health information will have the dates of when the information was written and when it will next be checked. These are usually found at the bottom of the web page.
• Double check information. If you can find reliable information from 2 different websites that is saying the same thing, it can help you feel more confident in the information.

The review date on a Macmillan information page looks like this:

If you are thinking about making treatment or lifestyle changes after reading some online health information, it is important to check with your cancer team or GP. They can talk to you about whether it is safe or helpful for your situation.

For example, some alternative diets can be harmful, or taking certain herbal remedies may affect some cancer treatments. This could cause worrying side effects and your cancer team may not be able to tell what is causing them.

‘Miracle cures’ and ‘Wonder drugs’

If the information makes claims that seem too good to be true then they probably are. When headlines describe ‘miracle cures’ or ‘wonder drugs’, they are created to make you click on them. This is sometimes called clickbait.  These types of claims usually do not have medical evidence to back them up. They are often made as fake news to increase likes, clicks and shares.

Personal stories

Online communities and the personal stories of people you know can be really helpful. They can make you feel less alone and sometimes offer useful tips.

But information that you hear third hand, for example from a friend of a friend or on social media, may not be reliable.

People often mean well when they share stories about someone else’s treatment or experience. It can be helpful to hear about positive outcomes, but cancer and its treatments affect everyone differently. Unfortunately, there are no guarantees that you will have the same experience or outcome.

One-sided information

Check if the information could be biased. Health information is usually balanced. Information that is only positive or only negative may not be false, but you might not get the full picture. Check who has written the information and why they have written it.

Advertising or promoting

Health information that is trying to sell or promote something is usually biased and is unlikely to be reliable. For example, some diet plans or supplements.

The term artificial intelligence (AI) means technology that allows machines, such as computers or smart speakers, to do tasks that normally need human intelligence.

Some organisations or individuals who create health information may use AI. Reliable sources will be honest about the fact that they use it, and what they use it for. They may have a policy on their website that you can check. AI can be useful in producing health information by doing tasks such as:

• translating information into other languages
• analysing lots of research data in a short period of time.

AI can also be used to create information. This is called generative AI. You can ask generative AI such as ChatGPT a question and it will create the answer from information found on the internet.

At the moment, it is not recommended that you use generative AI to find health information. This is because generative AI can only create answers from web information from a specific time period. This means that some of the information may be out of date and no longer correct.

Generative AI also creates answers by getting information from lots of different places on the internet. This means that information may not have been checked for quality, and it may contain both facts and misinformation. This can make it unreliable.

Generative AI may be trained to create answers from sources that are:

• misinformation or disinformation
• out of date
• untrue – generative AI has been known to ‘make up’ the answer to questions if it cannot find the information it needs
• not inclusive – generative AI may create answers using information that is racist, sexist or prejudiced in other ways.

For evidence-based, PIF TICK certified information about cancer, visit our cancer information pages.

You can read our statement on artificial intelligence (AI) and Macmillan cancer information.

You can also find out about our expert information reviewers.