Scoring

Ease of Use

This section of MedlinePlus is just an alphabetical list of topics associated with fitness and exercise. Clicking any one of the nine topics listed here leads to a page that explores the topic in more depth. It requires users to constantly jump back and forth between websites, but otherwise all the relevant material is contained to this one page of resources.

Visual Design

This landing page is simply a topic list, with no images or multimedia to engage the reader. Lacking even topic headings, and featuring a dull, static design, this page displays virtually no visual appeal whatsoever.

Quality

Users can learn about many aspects of fitness and exercise, including consequences of inactivity. The materials assembled here come from a wide variety of sources, most of them from high quality perspectives. Not all pages are fleshed out with the same depth, but overall this is a small complaint given the wealth of information.

Credibility

MedlinePlus clearly identifies the organizations responsible for its curated content. These reputable sources include the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, the Office of Disease Prevention and Health Promotion, American Heart Association, and World Health Organization, among others. Users will find that the medical encyclopedia topics have the highest reliability, as they list the names of medical reviewers and date of last review. However, the currency of web pages linked on MedlinePlus vary, and individual authors and editors are only occasionally credited on the linked sites.