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Medical Information on YouTube
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To the Editor: In their Research Letter study, Dr Keelan and colleagues1 evaluated YouTube as a source of information on immunization. Previous reports have indicated an increasing use and inconsistency in the quality of online sources of information about vaccination.2-4 However, we are concerned that the application of a formal appraisal to a freeware Web site that is unregulated, uncensored, and designed more for entertainment than the dissemination of evidence-based medical advice may lend false gravitas to an unstructured, unvalidated online rating system as well as medical credence to a conduit of popular culture.
Furthermore, the authors' assignment of the content of each message as either positive or negative and their consequent conclusions may not be valid. By restricting the search criteria to vaccination and immunization, the authors limited their findings and analysis to only 153 videos mainly pertaining to childhood and human papillomavirus vaccines. They concluded that half . . . [Full Text of this Article]
Awori J. Hayanga, MD, MRCS
ahayanga@jhsph.edu
Heather E. Kaiser, BSc
Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health
Baltimore, Maryland
RELATED ARTICLE
YouTube as a Source of Information on Immunization: A Content Analysis
Jennifer Keelan, Vera Pavri-Garcia, George Tomlinson, and Kumanan Wilson
JAMA. 2007;298(21):2482-2484.
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RELATED LETTER
Medical Information on YouTube—Reply
Jennifer Keelan, Vera Pavri-Garcia, and Kumanan Wilson
JAMA. 2008;299(12):1425.
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