Healthcare Media Literacy and Research

Do you know how to find credible health research in the media and on Google? Looking to find reliable information for your health or for your family? If so, this is the YMyHealth Podcast episode for you! Co-Host Melissa Schenkman discusses the importance of health literacy for millennials, drawing on her two decades in public health research to give you easy-to-use rules of the road for conducting personal health research online.

The conversation covers how to evaluate health studies, the significance of sample size, peer review, and the impact factor of journals. Melissa also analyzes recent studies on yoga, dementia, and PFAS in drinking water and cancer cases, highlighting the importance of understanding research credibility. The episode concludes with a recap of the tools and public resources for finding trustworthy health information and encourages listeners to engage with their health journey.

Highlights: 

• (00:00) Introduction to Health Challenges for Millennials
• (01:09) Empowering Millennials in Health Research
• (04:22) Navigating Reliable Health Information
• (14:56)  Evaluating Health Studies: Tools and Criteria
• (15:24)  Analyzing Recent Health Studies
• (26:40) Recap and Resources for Health Research

Links:

Are you a millennial interested in learning more about healthcare issues specifically related to your generation? Start here: https://www.ymyhealth.com/ and follow us on Instagram at: https://www.instagram.com/ymyhealth_/

Learn about YMyHealth's Founder, Melissa Schenkman, MPH, MSJ, here: https://www.ymyhealth.com/team/melissa-schenkman

Have a question about today's episode? Email us at [email protected]. We will be answering all your podcast episode questions in our upcoming Q&A episode on Monday, March 31st.

Interested in sponsoring the YMyHealth podcast? We'd love to partner with brands and organizations that align with our mission of providing healthcare education to millennials. Contact us at [email protected] for sponsorship opportunities.

Sources for journal articles- PubMed: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/ and Google Scholar: https://scholar.google.com/schhp?hl=en&as_sdt=0,11
Research studies featured in this episode:

• Lifetime risk and projected burden of dementia - *Note this journal has an Impact Factor Score of 87
• Associations between per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) and county-level cancer incidence between 2016 and 2021 and incident cancer burden attributable to PFAS in drinking water in the United States  
• A Closer Look a Yoga Nidra: Sleep Lab Protocol

Melissa's go-to list of credible health online public resources (scroll down to the article's second section): https://www.ymyhealth.com/blog/finding-reliable-resources-for-health-information?rq=research

Thanks again to our sponsor Diekman Dysautonomia! If you’d like to learn more about our sponsor, go to https://dysautonomiaexpert.com