Health education over resources, that use English, German and French language, is a rapidly growing area of medicine within the World Wide Web. Multiple gateways and portal servers have been set up to guide people within the diversity of materials available. For smaller language groups the situation is quite different: there is a lack of information in even the basic medical education topics. The question is: how to fill the missing gaps. Principally two different ways are possible: <list list-type="order"> <list-item> Translating materials from English, German, French and other "big" language groups. </list-item> <list-item> Generating original Internet-based texts for "smaller" language group </list-item> </list> When using the first, possibility of problems related to copyright and proper translating occur. When using the second approach, the quality of materials could suffer. As an example, the homepage for health education www.doctus.ee is discussed in detail. This homepage includes materials about the health care system, basic health topics, main diseases and also a questionnaire for consulting one's health problems with a doctor. A year's experience running this health education Web site in Estonian has brought to following conclusions: <list list-type="order"> <list-item> For translations a link for originals should be included. </list-item> <list-item> With original Estonian texts copyright questions are frequent. </list-item> <list-item> Guidance is frequently needed for translated texts. </list-item> <list-item> Health consultations over Internet should be legally regulated </list-item> </list> </sec> </abstract> <kwd-group> <kwd>Health Education</kwd> <kwd>Health Promotion</kwd> </kwd-group> </article-meta> </front> </article>

JMIR

J Med Internet Res

Journal of Medical Internet Research

1438-8871

Gunther Eysenbach

Centre for Global eHealth Innovation, Toronto, Canada

v1isuppl1e52

10.2196/jmir.1.suppl1.e52

Abstract

MED9/368: Health education over Internet: Is there a special way for smaller language groups?

Aru

Doctus, Tartu

Estonia

Jul-Sep 1999

19 9 1999

1 suppl1

e52

Except where otherwise noted, articles published in the Journal of Medical Internet Research are distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://www.creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

1999

Health education over resources, that use English, German and French language, is a rapidly growing area of medicine within the World Wide Web. Multiple gateways and portal servers have been set up to guide people within the diversity of materials available. For smaller language groups the situation is quite different: there is a lack of information in even the basic medical education topics. The question is: how to fill the missing gaps. Principally two different ways are possible: <list list-type="order"> <list-item> Translating materials from English, German, French and other "big" language groups. </list-item> <list-item> Generating original Internet-based texts for "smaller" language group </list-item> </list> When using the first, possibility of problems related to copyright and proper translating occur. When using the second approach, the quality of materials could suffer. As an example, the homepage for health education www.doctus.ee is discussed in detail. This homepage includes materials about the health care system, basic health topics, main diseases and also a questionnaire for consulting one's health problems with a doctor. A year's experience running this health education Web site in Estonian has brought to following conclusions: <list list-type="order"> <list-item> For translations a link for originals should be included. </list-item> <list-item> With original Estonian texts copyright questions are frequent. </list-item> <list-item> Guidance is frequently needed for translated texts. </list-item> <list-item> Health consultations over Internet should be legally regulated </list-item> </list> </sec> </abstract> <kwd-group> <kwd>Health Education</kwd> <kwd>Health Promotion</kwd> </kwd-group> </article-meta> </front> </article>