Health Education and Internet Site

WebMD is based in Elmwood Park, New Jersey. It is a website that focuses in aiding consumers with healthcare related information, including a checklist on symptoms, information on pharmaceutical drugs, a blog where physicians write about specific topics, such as, cancer, children’s health, chronic conditions, etc. Jim Clark and Pavan Nigam founded WebMD in 1996 as Healthscape, later becoming Healtheon, which later acquired WebMD in 1999 to form Healtheon/WebMD, and after a while it was shortened to WebMD. By February 2011, WebMD’s sites reached an average of 86.4 million visitors per month. Sponsors of WebMD also provide third-party information with helpful links to pages that contain additional information. For example, Merck provides information on vaccinations, such as, vaccines basics, the importance of vaccination, infectious diseases, etc. Cymbalta has information on joint pain, like osteoarthritis, depression, and fibromyalgia. Other sponsors include, Axiron for low testosterone, Mirena for birth control for mothers, Cimzia for rheumatoid arthritis and Crohn’s disease, Amarin for high triglycerides, Medel for hearing aid alternatives, Xiaflex for Dupuytren’s contracture. With its vast array of informational tools, from links under their Health A-Z, Drug Supplement, Living Healthy, etc., WebMD’s target population is people that come from all walks of life who are seeking health information with a sense of purpose. The obese portion of the website targets consumers that are either obese, or have the propensity of becoming obese. Its URL is, http://www.webmd.com. The health behaviors and health outcomes that this section of WebMD targets are reducing and preventing obesity by teaching consumers how to live healthier lives by modifying eating habits through diet plans, and weight loss, which can alleviate other morbidity and mortality factors that are associated with obesity. The objective of WebMD that closely relates to the objective of Healthy People 2020 is,...