Ellis, C.H. orcid.org/0000-0003-1060-3019, Moore, J.B. orcid.org/0000-0003-4750-1550, Ho, P. orcid.org/0000-0002-2533-0183 et al. (1 more author) (2023) Development and validation of a quality assessment tool to assess online nutrition information. Digital Health, 9. ISSN 2055-2076
Abstract
Setting: The internet is an important source of health information but is unregulated. Little research has focused on the assessment of digital information related to nutrition. Aim: To develop and validate a novel online quality assessment tool (OQAT) for quality assessment of online nutrition information. Method: The OQAT was developed and validated in six distinct stages. After reviewing the literature, a framework and criteria were developed and formalised. Next, the quality assessment criteria were piloted on a subset of data and criteria refined. The established criteria were then validated against a previously validated assessment tool, and reliability was tested. Finally, the validated OQAT was used to assess the quality of articles from a 24-h collection period, 19 April 2021. Results: The final OQAT consisted of 10 key questions. Twenty-six news articles were assessed independently by two raters. Comparison of scores found moderate internal consistency (α = 0.382). Cohen's Kappa coefficient demonstrated high interrater agreement (k = 0.653, p < 0.001). The OQAT was tested on 291 relevant Uniform Resource Locators (URLs), which were determined to be either poor 3% (n = 9), satisfactory 49% (n = 144), or high-quality 48% (n = 139) articles. There was a statistically significant difference in OQAT scores between blogs, news articles, and press releases, χ2(2) = 23.22, p < 0.001, with a mean rank OQAT score of 138.2 for blogs, 216.6 for news articles, and 188.7 for press releases. Conclusion: This novel tool provides a reliable and objective method for assessing the quality of nutrition content online. It could potentially be used by researchers to assess the quality of online information in different settings and by organisations to inform readers of the quality of information being accessed.
Metadata
Item Type: | Article |
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Authors/Creators: |
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Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information: | © The Author(s) 2023. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) which permits any use, reproduction and distribution of the work without further permission provided the original work is attributed as specified on the SAGE and Open Access page (https://us.sagepub.com/en-us/nam/open-access-at-sage). |
Keywords: | Nutrition; quality assessment; quality assessment tool; digital health; online information; validation |
Dates: |
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Institution: | The University of Leeds |
Academic Units: | The University of Leeds > Faculty of Environment (Leeds) > School of Food Science and Nutrition (Leeds) The University of Leeds > Faculty of Environment (Leeds) > School of Food Science and Nutrition (Leeds) > FSN Nutrition and Public Health (Leeds) The University of Leeds > Faculty of Environment (Leeds) > School of Food Science and Nutrition (Leeds) > FSN Colloids and Food Processing (Leeds) |
Depositing User: | Symplectic Publications |
Date Deposited: | 17 Feb 2025 11:43 |
Last Modified: | 17 Feb 2025 11:43 |
Status: | Published |
Publisher: | SAGE Publications |
Identification Number: | 10.1177/20552076231187249 |
Related URLs: | |
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID): | oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:223394 |