Exercising soft closure on lay health knowledge? Harnessing the declining power of the medical profession to improve online health information

Abstract

This study aims to address the increasingly complex medical predicament of low-quality online health information contributing to lay health knowledge and consequently to clinical outcomes. We situate the predicament within a social change paradigm of individualism, choice, diminishing medical power and emergence of the legitimacy of lay health knowledge. We contend that the prominence of lay health knowledge has been facilitated by the internet, and is due to a surge in broadcasting of experiential knowledge coupled with increased access to and enactment of medical and non-medically sanctioned online information on health and illness. We draw on and further test the application of social closure theory to help conceive a potential solution to this enduring problem. We conduct a quality assessment of an indicative case study, Apicectomies, and test the application of our notion of soft closure on its findings, resulting in targeted, feasible and potentially beneficial solutions to increasing the medical quality of online health information. We further present the extant application of soft closure by Healthtalkonline.org, which collates a medically reliable set of experiential knowledge on a range of health issues. As such, we propose a constructive re-enactment of the traditional closure of the medical profession on medical knowledge.