With the exploding growth of the web, health websites have become a dominant force in the realm of health care. Technically savvy patients have been using the web not only to self inform but to self diagnose. In this paper we examine the trust relationship between humans and health websites by outlining the existing literature on trust in health websites. A total of forty-nine papers were examined using a meta-analytical framework. Using this framework, each paper was coded for the antecedents and facets that comprise user trust in health websites. Our findings show that there is little consensus regarding the defining characteristics of the construct of trust in health websites. Further research in this field should focus on collaboratively defining trust and what factors affect trust in health web sites.

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As people increasingly turn to health websites for the purposes of self-diagnosis and healthier living, we have an obligation to evaluate the factors that might affect a given user's assessment and their willingness to use such sites. Constructs such as quality, trust, and credibility need to be defined within this space in order for us to truly understand how and why people use health websites. In an effort to better understand these constructs we conducted a comprehensive analysis of all peer-reviewed empirical studies on trust in health websites --this paper is the result. Work on this topic was provided from eleven fields including HCI, Informatics, Medicine, and Decision Making. Our findings show that authors often value different facets of trust, report different outcomes, and rarely cite each other. Without a coherence of terms and values, the task of presenting and understanding how users trust health information on the web will be intractable.

Part of the job of healthcare providers is to manage patient information. Most is routine, but some is sensitive. For these reasons physicians' offices provide a rich environment for understanding complex, sensitive information management issues as they pertain to privacy and security. In this paper we present findings from interviews and observations of 15 offices in rural-serving southwest Virginia. Our work demonstrates how the current socio-technical system fails to meet the security needs of the patient. In particular, we found that the tensions between work practice and security, and between electronic and paper records resulted in insecure management of files.

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