Diagnosis Cancer:

Health Information on the Internet

Bias is present in every aspect of our lives, including our dealings with health and medical information, whether online, or in person with health professionals. Bias is inevitable; we as human being are not and cannot be perfect.  Jordan presents an excellent discussion of bias in her book Understanding Medical Information.

Jordan's three general levels of bias are:

     1) "General cultural bias: This bias refers to beliefs held by the majority                        culture in which an individual lives." 

     2) "Group/peer bias: These are perspectives taken by subgroups with which              an individual identifies. Such groups may be socioeconomic, ethnic,                        occupational, etc."

     3) "Individual bias: This refers to a person's idiosyncratic way of looking at                  the world"(p.55).

Physicians and other health care providers are susceptible to bias like everyone else. "Bias occurs when diagnostic or treatment decisions are made on the basis of factors that are irrelevant to the medical decision" (p.54). Things that might influence treatment decisions are such factors as: age, race, and physical attractiveness, as well as disease etiology. One major problem with bias is that people are generally unaware of any biases they hold. Most people do not try to be biased; a large part it is a product of living amongst others. The other significant problem with biases are that they often contain partial truths, and thus are hard to refute.

Being aware of these facts is important. Besides being aware that bias is all around us, we should keep in mind the following points:

1) “We see what we expect to see.”

2) “We see what others around us see.”

3) “We see only as much as our physiological apparatus allows us to see”
     (p.56). [3]

This discussion is not meant to inspire paranoia. Most health care practitioners are conscious of the effects of bias and do what they can to reduce its influence. Also many institutions follow guidelines or have protocols in place to reduce bias. Even so, everyone should be aware of this issue.

Broom's Study

Levels of Information in Cyberspace

Bias

Deconstruction

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