Soon after President Donald J. Trump took office for his second term, thousands of health websites run by the federal government that kept the public informed about infectious diseases, mental health, vaccines and more were taken offline.
Many eventually returned — in large part because a judge ordered the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to temporarily restore the pages — but some had been altered, with sections on topics such as health equity and teen pregnancy deleted. The changes, along with uncertainty around the future of these sites, has led some public health experts to question whether the websites can still be trusted as the gold standard of trustworthy health information, as they’ve long been regarded.
Federal health agencies are already facing a crisis of confidence. When a recent national poll asked respondents how much trust they had in the C.D.C. to make the right health recommendations, more than one-third replied “not much” or “not at all.” Nearly half said the same about the Food and Drug Administration.
Experts fear that with less trust in public health institutions, more people seeking medical information might turn to social media, where misinformation is rampant. That has made it all the more valuable for the public to find evidenced-based sources of health information.
Here are five websites run by independent organizations that have accurate, easy-to-understand information.
1. Vaccine Education Center
Of all the health information on federal websites, medical experts have been increasingly concerned about the availability of accurate vaccine information. Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the nation’s health secretary, has been a longtime critic of vaccines and has spread misinformation about their safety for years.
These anxieties worsened after an anti-vaccine nonprofit founded by Mr. Kennedy published a page that mimicked the design of a C.D.C. site about vaccine safety but promoted the debunked theory that vaccines caused autism.
One option for finding evidence-based vaccine information is the Vaccine Education Center, a program created 25 years ago by the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia to dispel misinformation and help people understand the science behind immunization.
The website provides vaccine schedules for various age groups, along with straightforward explanations of immunization recommendations and certain vaccine ingredients.
It also addresses common safety concerns about vaccines, citing current medical literature; and each post is verified by a hospital physician.
The center is funded by philanthropic donations and the hospital, and does not accept money from vaccine manufacturers, said Dr. Paul Offit, an infectious disease expert who directs the program. The website is also verified as a credible source of vaccine information by the World Health Organization, which endorses only sites that meet its credibility and transparency standards.
2. The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists
A growing body of research has found that social media is rife with inaccurate information on infertility, Pap smears, birth control and other women’s health issues.
To help sort fact from fiction, A.C.O.G. has created a website that offers vetted information on routine gynecological care, like cervical cancer screenings, as well as on topics that have been caught in political cross hairs, such as abortion care.
The site pulls information from medical societies, government agencies, nonprofits and A.C.O.G.’s own guidelines. Subject matter experts review each page.
The organization checks the content every two years and updates it as needed.
A.C.O.G. accepts funding from certain corporations and foundations, but only if it does not pose a conflict of interest and if it “in no way affects A.C.O.G’s objectivity, priorities, and actions,” according to the organization’s website.
3. The Cleveland Clinic’s Health Library
To counter medical misinformation, the Cleveland Clinic created a searchable library that provides vetted health information about viral TikTok trends, answers general questions about medications and procedures, and offers expert takes on alternative remedies or supplements.
For example, the page about cod liver oil — a supplement some families have used in an attempt to treat and prevent measles during a recent outbreak in Texas — includes information about whether federal regulators have evaluated it. (They haven’t.) It also explains what medications the oil might interact with, and which side effects warrant immediate medical care.
Each entry is written by a team of journalists and subject-matter experts from the Cleveland Clinic, who draw from peer-reviewed journals, scientific textbooks and organizations like the American Medical Association.
4. HealthyChildren.org
For trustworthy information about children’s health, several experts recommended healthychildren.org, a website operated and funded by the American Academy of Pediatrics.
The website provides information on a wide range of topics that affect children from infancy to young adulthood. It also offers useful interactive tools, like a “symptom checker” that lets parents input a child’s symptoms and then offers guidance on treatment.
Physicians who specialize in each topic write the articles, which are periodically reviewed. The organization also says that doctors also review any external websites linked on healthychildren.org for accuracy. All of the information is also available in Spanish.
The website has some corporate sponsors (disclosed here), but the A.A.P. has emphasized that these companies do not have any influence over the editorial content.
5. The Tracking Report
For information about fast-moving public health threats, like infectious diseases, you can subscribe to the Tracking Report, a free newsletter run by a group of experts at the Pandemic Center at Brown University School of Public Health.
The newsletter uses data from medical journals, international health organizations and U.S. agencies to compile weekly updates about outbreaks in the United States and abroad. In recent weeks, the newsletter has covered topics like bird flu and the ongoing measles outbreak in Texas.
The team has recently started collecting infectious disease data from state and local health departments, said Jennifer Nuzzo, a Brown epidemiologist who runs the newsletter.
Experts also recommended the National Foundation for Infectious Diseases as a resource for information on symptoms and treatment of conditions such as Covid-19 and the flu.
Much of the nonprofit’s content comes from the C.D.C., but Dr. Monica Farley, president-elect for the organization, said internal experts review all of the information before posting to ensure the site is “an evidence-based, reliable source of information.”