Anyone who uses Wikipedia for health information—whether they’re a clinician, professor, student, or layperson—should be familiar with some simple techniques to evaluate the quality of an article.
- Quality Grade: What is the article’s quality grade? This can be viewed on the article’s Talk page (accessible from the tab at the top left of an article). Articles are given grades ranging from Stub (a very basic description of a topic) to Featured Article (has passed an in-depth examination by impartial reviewers).
- Template Messages: These warning banners at the top of the page can alert you to issues that editors have identified with an article. The dates can be informative too - if the warnings are very old, that article is more likely to be out of date.
- Article Structure: Is it lengthy, with multiple sections and many references, or is it very short with only a few subsections that do not reflect the breadth of information you would expect to see on that topic? For example, compare the 'diabetes' article with the 'allergist' article.
- References: Is most of the information cited, and do the references appear to be recent, reliable secondary sources from third-party publications? Look for systematic reviews and references to publications from government institutions like the NIH or guidelines from professional organizations. Be wary of articles with few references, outdated references, or information that relies mostly on individual research studies. Compare 'aphonogelia' to 'cancer' for examples at both ends of the spectrum.
- Talk Page & Edit History: Does the article's Talk page show a lot of activity and heated debates or disagreement, or do you see editors suggesting and discussing improvements? Does the edit history show evidence of editors repeatedly overriding each others' changes? A hotly contested article can sometimes result in an edit war, in which edits are made by disagreeing editors rapidly to override each others' contributions. This is rare, but if you happen to come across an article like this you should view it with skepticism.
- Protected Status: Occasionally, you may see a small lock icon in the upper right of an article. This indicates that the article has protected status and can only be edited by certain editors - for instance, vetted subject experts. This status usually indicates that the topic may have been rapidly changing, prone to vandalism, or the subject of an edit war. One example is the COVID-19 article.
If an article is raising red flags for you, try starting with a different resource or consider improving it yourself!
Below, watch a brief video about how to evaluate Wikipedia in a clinical context for using yourself or for sharing with patients.