Wow, do I have a myriad of resources for all of you out there in Netscape land THIS week! I did a search on Savvy Search (which, by the way, is a totally AWESOME search engine, perhaps even my new favorite!) on "health related interest groups" and Savvy Search returned all kinds of goodies to me. For those of you who are looking for locations that will help you to find all kinds of health-related information, here are two that I found incredibly informative and easy to use:
The goal of Health Net is to provide a single window point of access to health care resources on the Internet in order to provide easier access to health resources and demonstrate the innovative ways in which many health groups are using currently available "information highway" technologies. If you speak French, there's even a French version of Health Net that you can click on. I loved this site because it was so easy to use. It lists the different health subject areas for you to use and there's also a quick list of starting points if you're in a hurry. There's also links to extensive listings of health care resources on the net. You can do a health-related search on this site, too. On top of all this, there's also a section on applications for health care computer networks which shows different ways that computers can be used in health care settings. Basically, this site is a great all-in-one resource for anyone looking for health related topics.
This is another awesome internet site for locating medical resources. This page has a different format from health net in that it lists the site name, provider, type of resource provided there, format, subjects discussed in the site, and an evaluation of the site. It's easy to find what you want on this site just by looking under the subject portion and then reading the evaluation helps to tell you what the link is like and how helpful the link might be for you. The only drawback of this site is that it's not arranged by subject, so you have to read through all the resources to find the subject you want.
The rest of the sites I checked out were the sites of the actual health related interest groups themselves. The Medicine and Biology site was found by Webcrawler, and this link led me to several other links under the main topics of Cytology, Genetics, and Molecular Biology, Ecology, General, and Public Health and Industrial Medicine. I've included here, some of the more memorable health related interest groups that I found at this site.
This page was simple in that there was one large icon that provided access to all the information that the page provides. Topics covered on this homepage included a welcome statement, news & events concerning, access to information about NIH health and clinical issues, NIH funded grants and research projects and a variety of research resources in support of NIH intramural scientists, as well as links to the other divisions of NIH. I thought that the section on Health Information would probably be the most helpful for most people. There were site here on cancer, AIDS, and even bone marrow transplant.
This was another page that was not very long because all the links that one could need were in a very neat box. Each link had its own box to click on Provides information on the Department's mission and programs. Links to HHS Programs are listed by Organization and by topic. Topics include About HHS, HHS Agencies on the Internet, News & Public Affairs, Consumer Information, What's New, GrantsNet, Research & Data, Policy, and a Topic Index. If you are looking for something in particular, I suggest heading straight for the topic index, which I found to be the most helpful part of his page. Some of the health topics included Cancer, Substance Abuse, and Health Information for Senior Citizens.
This homepage provides information on clearinghouse and source of scientific information for use by local communities, development interests, resource managers, land owners and other groups and individuals. Aside from providing information on these groups, this page also provides links to Webcrawler and some other the other WWW search engines so that you can conduct your own search if the information you are looking for is not contained in this page.
For those of you who like to use 
here are
some links from Yahoo under the heading Business
& Economy: Organizations: Public Interest Groups: Health.
The Zen Hospice Project is dedicated to the care of people approaching death and increasing our understanding of our own impermanence. If you want to learn about any aspect of hospice care, about confronting life-threatening illness or about a Buddhist approach to death and dying, you can find information here. This site actually won some kind of award so it's worth checking out; we all can appreciate a well done web site, even if the topic is not of interest to us!
When I first clicked on the link to this homepage, I thought it would be really interesting to see what kind of life lessons that I could learn. I found out, that life education is a program that children go through as they grow up that teaches children about violence and all forms of abuse, not a program for me (oh, well). The Life Education Network is dedicated to the prevention of drug abuse, violence, AIDS, and all forms of personal harm related behavior. Life Education however, is not just about telling kids to say not to drugs, it focuses on teaching young people about the physical, mental, and spiritual consequences of saying yes to drugs whether legal or illegal. It was interesting for me to know that there are programs like this out there for young kids, especially today, when many children must grow up knowing the reality of death due to gang violence (or any other violence for that matter. Is it just me, or does it seem to you like movies are getting more and more warped, ex. "Seven"? I mean, what kind of sick mind thinks up movies like these?)
Since this IS a psychology class, I thought I should include information about a psych-related site. The Sidran Foundation is a national non-profit organization devoted to advocacy, education and research in support of people with psychiatric disabilities. A major focus of the foundation is development of programs, projects and publications for survivors of catastrophic trauma, and those who live and work with them. What I thought was great about this foundation is that it is run by people who have survived trauma. This is what society should be about, making lemonade out of lemons. These people took a bad situation and were able to make something positive come out of it in that they now help others who were in their situation. Things in life always happen for a purpose and we must make the best of what we are given. I admire people who are able to do this.
Lastly, for those of you out there who are interested in newsgroups, here are some Medical and Health Related New Groups (there are many others, but here are a few I thought people might like to check out):
alt.med.cfs
Chronic fatigue syndrome information
bit.listserv.mednews
Health Info-Com Network Newsletter. (Moderated)
misc.health.alternative
Alternative, complementary and holistic health care.
sci.med.nutrition
Physiological impacts of diet.
sci.med.psychobiology
Dialog and news in psychiatry and psychobiology.
sci.med.telemedicine
Clinical consulting through computer networks.