Health On The Net Foundation

The Health On the Net Foundation (HON) is a non-profit, nongovernmental (NGO) organization, headquartered in Geneva, Switzerland. Since 1995, HON has been committed to guiding users worldwide towards trustworthy health information on the Internet. The inception of HON dates back to a conference in 1995, where distinguished participating organizations – the World Health Organization (WHO), the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), the European Laboratory for Particle Physics (CERN), the European Commission, the National Library of Medicine, and the G-7 Global Healthcare Applications Project – decided that there is a need to improve the quality of health information under the responsibility of webmasters, and to improve access to trustworthy health information. To achieve the goal of improving the quality of online health information, HON certifies health websites. The certification is free-of-charge and based on the HON code of conduct, which consists of 8 ethical principles including, for example, the clear distinction between content and advertisement, and the provision of references and sources. In short, the evaluation is more focused on how the health information is presented and not on the medical content itself. Websites are evaluated periodically and in addition, control mechanisms indicate possible non-respect of the HONcode. The public plays an important role in making sure that the HONcode certified websites continue to respect the ethical principles.