The Preventing Overdiagnosis was held at Dartmouth from 10-12 September. Consumer Reports was a sponsor of the event, as was Australia’s Bond University and BMJ. I was scheduled to speak about Wikipedia and health.
There is a concept in medical literature called “overutilization” which refers to overuse of medical resources. This includes overtreatment, which is giving medical treatment without indication and therefore without cause. “Overdiagnosis” means the act of diagnosing a patient with a condition they do not have. This is a problem in the United States especially but in many places and for many reasons. There is a Wikipedia article formerly called “overutilization” but which I renamed to “Unnecessary health care” which outlines some of the problems. The name “prevention overdiagnosis” likely came from Ray Moynihan’s paper of the same name.
Here is the description of my talk:
Workshop – How is Wikipedia Health Information Useful?
Lane Rasberry, Wikipedian in Residence at Consumer Reports
Wikipedia is one of the world’s most popular websites. To what extent does its popularity apply to the field of health, and why would anyone go to Wikipedia for health information? Join this session for a one-hour introduction to Wikipedia, which includes a tour of the health-related Wiki entries, and a case study of the content on overdiagnosis. In the last half hour, people who need coffee are excused while those interested folks with laptops can join a short, hands-on workshop to learn how to determine what it would mean to use Wikipedia as a health communication platform.
There is my description of my own talk below. I sent a short description and was asked for a longer description with time, which I thought was exceptional but I shared. They published it all in the program which I found flattering. When I got to the conference I found that they scheduled me into the largest room which was not the main conference space, which also was flattering. My talk was well received. I got a lot of compliments about it. I skipped the workshop part of the program because people continued to ask questions after the lecture part of my talk.
20-25 minutes
1. General description of Wikipedia platform
2.Anatomy of a Wikipedia article – look at article and point out key features (overdiagnosis article)
3. General description of health content on Wikipedia
4. Overview of health content traffic statistics (example – overdiagnosis article)
5. The pitch – “You can edit Wikipedia”
6.Push back – Dissuade people for whom Wikipedia would not be helpful. Give practical reasons why people should not edit Wikipedia to excuse the people who cannot go further.
7. Case study – overdiagnosis article – rather thorough review
8.Review of talk – explain, “You can check article traffic, you can repeat what I did to the overdiagnosis article”
35 minutes:
Questions and live demonstrations based on questions
5 minutes:
Excuse people who do not wish to participate in workshop
25 minutes:
Offer assistance in doing 2-3 Wikipedia exercises, including the following:
1. Checking article traffic
2. Generating a citation from a book or article
3. Adding content which I have prepared for them to a live article
4. Posting a comment to a help board