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Online Information of Vaccines: Methods
by Browserology: Study & Science of Internet BrowsersMay 4th, 2024
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This study investigates the relationship between search engines’ approach to privacy and the scientific quality of the information they return.
This paper is available on arxiv under CC 4.0 license.
Authors:
(1) Pietro Ghezzi, Brighton & Sussex Medical School, Falmer, Brighton, UK;
(2) Peter G Bannister, Brighton & Sussex Medical School, Falmer, Brighton, UK;
(3) Gonzalo Casino, Communication Department, Pompeu Fabra University, Barcelona, Spain and Iberoamerican Cochrane Center, Barcelona, Spain;
(4) Alessia Catalani, Department of Biomolecular Sciences, University of Urbino Carlo Bo, Urbino, PU, Italy;
(5) Michel Goldman, Institute for Interdisciplinary Innovation in healthcare (I3h), Université libre de Bruxelles;
(6) Jessica Morley, Oxford Internet Institute, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK;
(7) Marie Neunez, Institute for Interdisciplinary Innovation in healthcare (I3h), Université libre de Bruxelles;
(8) Andreu Prados, Communication Department, Pompeu Fabra University, Barcelona, Spain, Iberoamerican Cochrane Center, Barcelona, Spain, Department of Biomolecular Sciences, University of Urbino Carlo Bo, Urbino, PU, Italy, Institute for Interdisciplinary Innovation in healthcare (I3h), Université libre de Bruxelles, Oxford Internet Institute, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK, and Blanquerna School of Health Sciences, Universitat Ramon Llull, Barcelona, Spain;
(9) Mariarosaria Taddeo, Oxford Internet Institute, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK, Blanquerna School of Health Sciences, Universitat Ramon Llull, Barcelona, Spain, and The Alan Turing Institute, London, UK;
(10) Tania Vanzolini, Department of Biomolecular Sciences, University of Urbino Carlo Bo, Urbino, PU, Italy;
(11) Luciano Floridi, Oxford Internet Institute, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK, Blanquerna School of Health Sciences, Universitat Ramon Llull, Barcelona, Spain, and The Alan Turing Institute, London, UK.
Table of Links
- Abstract and Introduction
- Methods
- Web search and content analysis
- Results
- Discussion
- Conclusion and References
- Table 1. Example of classification of webpages
- Table 2. Percentage of vaccine-negative webpages in different SERPs
Methods
In seeking to answer the above research question, this study builds on previous work which:
(a) focuses on the results returned by a search of “vaccines autism” in different countries and languages, and found a great variability in the composition of the webpages returned and their ranking 17; and
(b) suggests that whether a webpage promotes a medical treatment based on the practices of evidence-based medicine (EBM; e.g. based on the reporting by Cochrane reviews) can act as a proxy for health IQ.
The phrase “vaccines autism” was searched using the main search engines (Google, Bing and Yahoo) and alternative providers which focus on respecting privacy and personal data (Duckduckgo, Mojeek, Qwant and Ecosia3) in four languages/countries (English-UK, Italian, Spanish and French) and the international, US-English version of Google (Google.com). We also used some country- or language-specific search engines. Each webpage returned was classified as vaccine-positive, -negative or –neutral as described in the Table 1
L O A D I N G
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