State health department Web sites inaccessible to many, study finds
From EurekAlert! - Breaking News:
"Inaccessible websites hurt the underprivileged and make it difficult to justify the investment in technology that has taken place in state governments around the country," the authors state.
"Unless these concerns are addressed, public e-health will remain the domain of highly educated and affluent individuals who speak English and do not suffer from physical impairments."
West and Miller examined the accessibility, privacy, and security of public websites maintained by the 50 state governments in the United States in the last two to five years.
Using content analysis, they focused on readability levels, disability access, non-English accessibility, and the presence of privacy and security statements.
Though half of Americans read at an eighth-grade level, only 20 percent of state health department web sites were written at that level in 2005, the authors found.
In 2000, only 8 percent of health departments had an online privacy policy and only 4 percent had a secu-rity policy.
However, by 2005, those numbers grew to 86 percent for privacy policies and 62 percent for security policies.
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