Editorial Policy

Your Personal Health Care

• Health content on this website is of a general nature. It is meant for your education only.
• Do not use this health content instead of professional health care to prevent, diagnose, or treat your health problems.
• Talk with your doctor or pharmacist before taking:
  • Any prescribed or over-the-counter (OTC) drugs
  • Dietary supplements
  • Herbal remedies
• Talk with your doctor before starting any course of treatment.
• Our programs are meant to help you make healthy, safe, and moderate changes to your health behaviors. You should not make drastic changes to your diet, body weight, or exercise program without help from your doctor. It can be dangerous or unhealthy to:
  • Exercise too hard
  • Lose too much weight
  • Lose weight quickly
  • Make sudden changes to your diet or other health behaviors
• Only your doctor, health professional, or pharmacist can tell you what health behavior change is safe and useful for you.

Health Content on This Website

• Health content is researched and written by qualified, licensed, clinical staff or non-clinical staff with experience in research and writing consumer health education materials.
• All health content is reviewed for clinical accuracy by one or more health professionals before it is posted.
• Health content is reviewed at least every two (2) years. The review date of health content is updated and reflected on the website within two (2) months of the scheduled review. 
• The editorial team has an established system that manages and tracks the schedule of all health content reviews. The next review date is established as reviews take place.
• The credentials of health care professionals who review content are verified at set times.
• The authors of health content must tell us if they have any conflicts of interest. A conflict of interest means a situation in which financial or other personal considerations have the potential to compromise or bias professional judgment and objectivity.
• Clinical authors use their professional ethical standards when they write health content for this website.
• Company and evidence-based clinical guidelines and other peer reviewed literature are used to design and create health content.
• Clinical guidelines are reviewed at least once each year. Updates are made to health content throughout the year if the guidelines change.
• The editorial team has established criteria for high-priority/unscheduled reviews, as well as criteria for moderate-priority and low-priority changes to existing health content.
• To learn about the writers and reviewers of health content on this website, see the Editorial Board section.
• Some of the health content on this website is provided by EBSCO. EBSCO is a leader in publishing health and medical information on the Internet. To learn more about the content provided by this vendor, you can read the EBSCO editorial policy .
  • To learn about the EBSCO authors and reviewers, click on the author or reviewer links within each EBSCO article.