Bilingual Consumer Health Website Unveiled by Academy at www.noah-health.org

NEW YORK CITY, April 11 ??? A unique bilingual website that makes it simple for English- and Spanish-speaking consumers to find a wealth of useful health and medical information and take charge of their own well-being has been redesigned and launched at http://www.noah-health.org.

Called ???New York Online Access to Health??? (NOAH), the site was built by The New York Academy of Medicine and partners to provide access to high quality, easy-to-understand health information that is accurate, timely, relevant and unbiased. NOAH???s support of both English and Spanish is an unusual feature for consumer health information websites, which tend to be predominantly in English. People who speak only Spanish are often medically underserved so will greatly benefit from a website that allows them to research their health and medical questions.

Consumers can search for a topic of their choice from the homepage, or can peruse a list of health topics listed alphabetically and according to themes such as genetic disorders, women???s health, and nutrition. Each link on NOAH leads to an outside website that professional librarians have certified as a reliable source of information. Searches yield fast results: consumers can get from question to answer in three to four mouse clicks because information has been organized in an intuitive and straightforward way.

A wide range of topics are available, covering everything from exercise to diseases to getting health insurance to avoiding blisters. Mothers-to-be with no idea how to change a diaper can find instructions under the ???pregnancy/newborn care??? category. If you???ve been diagnosed with cancer or heart disease and are hunting for more details about treatment, thousands of links are available. Those suffering from lower back pain can find diagrammed, simple exercises that offer relief in the ???back pain??? category. Concerned about wrinkles? Find up-to-date information about the effectiveness of botox, laser treatment and over-the-counter creams in the ???wrinkles??? category.

???The site delivers the kind of reliable consumer health information that you expect,??? said Maxine L. Rockoff, Ph.D., Director of the Academy Division of Information Management, which led the launch of the site. "Consumers are being called upon to take control of many decisions that affect their health, so having up-to-date, high-quality information is more important than ever.???

The Academy originally launched NOAH in June 1995, before most consumers even had Internet access. The project is a partnership with the New York Public Library, the Queens Borough Public Library, the Brooklyn Public Library, the City University of New York, and the Metropolitan New York Library Council. In the past decade, NOAH established its presence on the web as an outstanding bilingual consumer health information resource. Yet despite its great successes, the site was not as user-friendly and informative as it could have been, and did not offer as many Spanish-language resources as the Academy desired. The new site is far superior to the original, benefiting from a redesign and restructuring that has made it more attractive, easier to search, and filled with more extensive information in both languages. The fact that NOAH is much simpler to navigate than ever before makes it a more accessible and valuable resource for consumers.

The New York Academy of Medicine, one of the country???s premier urban health policy and intervention centers, focuses on enhancing the health of people living in cities through research, education, advocacy, and prevention. Visit us online.

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Posted on April 11, 2005

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Contact:
Andrew J. Martin
Director of Communications
The New York Academy of Medicine
1216 Fifth Avenue
New York, New York 10029
212-822-7285
amartin@nyam.org

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