• Korean Journal of Health Education and Promotion
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• v.31 no.2
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• pp.65-78
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• 2014

Objectives: The aim of this study is to evaluate promotional Internet health information on health functional foods with regard to labeling information, website structure, and overall quality. Methods : The websites of 15 producers of three health functional foods (Red ginseng, vitamin, aloe) were selected. Ministry of Food and Drug Safety (MFDS) required labeling information was used to evaluate the integrity of basic information, and the structural properties of the websites were investigated. Moreover, DISCERN instrument was used to evaluate reliability and quality of information. Results : 1) Among MFDS required labeling information, seven items, including 'sell by date', and 'possible side effects' were not fully specified, and only 6.7% of Internet advertisements provided 'possible side effects'. 2) Each of 92.9% of these websites offered 'Introducation to websites and producers', and 'customer service', whereas only 64.3% and 42.9% of these websites offered 'FAQ about website utilization' and 'multilingual support', respectively. 3) The evaluation using DISCERN instrument showed the scores of $2.03{\pm}0.24$ in reliability, $1.87{\pm}0.28$ in quality, and $2.10{\pm}0.55$ in overall quality. Conclusions : Current promotional Internet health information on health functional foods has various weaknesses in terms of reliability and quality that need to be improved.