Internet review

Citation

(2009), "Internet review", Health Education, Vol. 109 No. 3. https://doi.org/10.1108/he.2009.142109cag.001

Internet review

Article Type: Internet review From: Health Education, Volume 109, Issue 3

Health education web sites for children January 2009

In the past few years, there have been a number of initiatives launched aimed at improving the health of children. In the UK, we have seen the Healthy Schools Programme and more recently the Change4Life which is aimed at families with young children. Similarly, in North America, there are several strategies designed to improve the health of children including the “All Kids Covered” programme and the “Campaign for Children’s Health Care”. What all these initiatives have in common is that they are primarily designed by adults for adults with children. Admittedly, children might be involved through their parents but the main audience is parents rather than children themselves. To what extent is it possible to engage with young children directly, through the medium of the internet? In this review, we look at web sites that are designed to be used by children and young people specifically. Is it possible to get health education messages across to children without an intermediary in the form of an adult?

Kids Health – http://kidshealth.org/kid/

This web site, which is sponsored by the Nemours Foundation in the USA, is actually three web sites in one, providing health education information for young children, teens and their parents. In this review, the focus will be on the section that deals with information for kids. Although no age range is specified for “kids”, it must be assumed that it includes all young people who are not yet in their teens. This in itself is something of a problem for the designers of this web site, in that it is difficult to know at what level the content should be pitched. With a possible age range of anything between four and 12 years obviously cognitive development, reading ability and internet acumen, will differ considerably. The designers of this web site get round this problem by providing information in formats suitable for the different abilities their audience is likely to exhibit. So, in that sense the content becomes self-selecting. Younger children might not be interested in calculating their body mass index (calculator provided) but they might like the cartoon animations explaining how the body works.

The overall design of the web site is, in appearance, rather like a comic with an attractive home page, lots of flash animations, and interestingly for a North American web site, no advertisements of any sort. This is a deliberate policy decision taken by the sponsors of this web site, and it should be welcomed and hopefully adopted elsewhere.

One of the first things that will strike a user of this web site is the tremendous amount of information that is available. It is not clear how the menu has been organised but rather surprisingly the first item is one “Dealing with Feelings”. Further down the list the young user can find information on “How the Body Works”, “Staying Healthy” and “Kid’s Health Problems”. There is even a “Recipes” section, but this is really only for older children.

I particularly liked the section on “Health Problems of Grown-Ups” where children can find out about dentures, why hair turns grey and even why people shrink! This section also deals with more serious health issues faced by adults, e.g. Alzheimer’s disease, breast cancer, and stroke. Given the level of literacy required for this section, again this is really only suitable for older children. In some ways, this is a pity because even something like Alzheimer’s disease could be explained with simpler language and a few cartoons.

There is a high level of interactivity in this web site and the “Experiments to Try” section is very entertaining and educational. The experiments teach children about the five senses, vision, hearing, smell taste and touch. For the most part, even quite young children can complete them but occasionally, the child is asked to seek the help of an adult with a particularly complex experiment. One thing users should be aware of with this type of interactivity is that it does not always work with particular web browsers and unfortunately there is nothing on the web site to indicate that this might be the case.

Despite the problems of trying to accommodate the needs and interests of a wide range of children, this web site is very successful at what it does. Some of the terminology used may not be familiar to English-speaking children who are not North American, e.g. shots for injections, but these are minor problems and they should not detract from the usefulness of this web site for young children.

Children First for Health – www.childrenfirst.nhs.uk/

Children First for Health is hosted by the Great Ormond Street children’s hospital and is similar to the Kids Health web site in that it is divided into sections for children and adults. The sections for children are sub-divided into juniors (age 4-6), kids (7-11) and teens (12-18).

In part, the rationale for this web site is to help young children cope with admission to hospital and all that that entails. The four different sections are designed to be attractive to their particular user group. The juniors section is full of cartoon characters that are funny and very young children will enjoy. There is a cartoon doctor that invites the user to find out who’s who in hospital. A good idea it would seem. Clicking on this link takes the child to a page with eight more cartoon characters but with names like endocrinologist, rheumatologist and anaesthetist, I am not sure what a young child would make of it. Clicking on these figures then gives the user a little more information about the role of these medical professionals. This is a section of the web site in which younger children will probably need the help of an older sibling or adult.

Young children will enjoy the interactivity available in this web site. They can find out, in simple terms, what bits of the body do what, for example what is blood for? What do the lungs do? Or how do our eyes work? They can also interact with the various tests they may have to undergo while in hospital. Cartoon figures are again used to explain the likes of CT scan, blood tests and X-rays.

For the older children in the 7-11 age group, a similar format is adopted in terms of presentation and interaction. The educational level of information provided is considerably higher and though this should not be a problem for the 11-year old, some of the information may be difficult for younger users.

Children First for Health is quite similar to Kids Health but there is more fun to be had from this web site and therefore it will be more appealing to the children who are likely to make use it.

Young Minds – www.youngminds.org.uk/

Young Minds is the web site of a UK-based charity aimed at improving the mental health of young people up to the age of 25. As well as a section for parents, there are sections for young children and another for those who are older. No age ranges are specified so it is not clear what age group should use what section.

The section for younger children has a home page featuring a number of questions, such as “How are You Feeling?” as well as links to “Ways to Feel Better” and “Back to School Blues”. The information presented behind these links is written in a way that young children will easily understand. Different emotions are discussed, explanations as why we might feel as we do are presented and ways of changing feelings are suggested. For very difficult problems children are advised to either speak to their parents, to a teacher at school or to contact Childline, the telephone-based helpline.

One interesting feature of this web site is that children can download and listen to stories that attempt to deal with emotional difficulties they may be experiencing. At the time of writing the story was about a young girl whose mother was suffering from mental health problems. It is not clear from the web site if this story is to be just one of many stories dealing with different emotional problems, but it is an excellent way of promoting discussion of difficult emotional situations and it would be hoped that an archive of such stories could be added to the web site.

This is an interesting web site that confronts difficult issues in a way that is accessible and will be appreciated by both children and their parents.

Child and Youth Health – www.cyh.com/SubDefault.aspx?p=255

The Child and Youth Health web site is part of the children, Youth and Women’s Health Service in South Australia. This “Kids Only” web site has been designed for 6-12 year old children, though elsewhere there is a similar site for teenagers.

A cartoon/comic format is used for the home page and topics are organised alphabetically and can be accessed either through a search engine or via an A-Z “keyboard”. The list of topics really is extensive with literally hundreds of different health related issues included. The older children should not have any difficulties with this but I am not sure what a six-year old would make of “Anaphylaxis” ! What is good about this web site is the way the written content is presented. The style is perfect for children within this age group and where difficult words are used guidance on how to pronounce the word is provided, e.g. anna-fill-ax-is; even a six-year old could cope with that.

The section on “Your Safety” is particularly up to date including content on the internet, cyber bullying, gangs and using mobile phones safely and responsibly.

Obviously being an Australian-based web site not all the content will be relevant to users elsewhere in the world. The information on snakes and spiders is pretty scary stuff but fortunately in the UK this is not a major problem.

In terms of interactivity, this web site does not compare well with the others reviewed, but by virtue of its extensive content, it certainly makes up for this.