Exploring the distribution of online healthcare information

Suresh K. Bhavnani, Renju T. Jacob, Jennifer Nardine, Frederick A. Peck

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingConference contribution

18 Scopus citations

Abstract

Motivated by the importance of retrieving comprehensive healthcare information, we analyzed how information about 12 concepts related to a widely available healthcare topic is distributed across 145 high-quality webpages. The analysis reveals that the distribution of the concepts follows a power law where a few pages contain many concepts, while the majority contains less than half the concepts. The analysis also reveals the existence of general, specialized, and sparse pages, in addition to the large number of pages that users must visit before they have access to all the concepts. These results provide insights into expert search procedures, and motivate the design of future search systems that guide users in the retrieval of comprehensive information.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Title of host publicationCHI'03 Extended Abstracts on Human Factors in Computing Systems, CHI EA'03
Pages816-817
Number of pages2
DOIs
StatePublished - 2003
Externally publishedYes
EventConference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, CHI EA 2003 - Ft. Lauderdale, FL, United States
Duration: Apr 5 2003Apr 10 2003

Publication series

NameConference on Human Factors in Computing Systems - Proceedings

Other

OtherConference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, CHI EA 2003
Country/TerritoryUnited States
CityFt. Lauderdale, FL
Period4/5/034/10/03

Keywords

  • Distribution of information
  • Healthcare
  • Web searching

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Software
  • Human-Computer Interaction
  • Computer Graphics and Computer-Aided Design

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