Why We Work With Experts and How They Help Us Fight Medical Misinformation

A couple of years ago, I sprained my ankle playing soccer badly enough that I wasn't sure I'd be able to drive home. No stranger to sports injuries (it's all part of the game, as a former coach always said), I knew the basics about caring for a sprain, but it had been a while, so I needed a refresher.

Did I immediately contact my primary care physician or a physical therapist? Nope. I turned to Google.

I can't officially recommend this practice. In an ideal world, we'd all have the time, resources, access and patience to take our health questions directly to the professionals to best support the health outcomes we desire. But most of us don't live in that world.

Still, your health matters to you — maybe more than anything — and you want the most reputable, evidence-based answers to your questions. So do I.

Nothing replaces the certainty of the answers from my trusted health care team, but these days, getting an appointment takes months, and when I do go in, I've got about 15 minutes before they're onto the next patient. The world we currently live in demands different access points to the same reassurance.

Sharing credible health information broadly and approachably is a big part of why I began my career as a health journalist more than 15 years ago. And even all these years later, I still sometimes marvel at the access I have to top-tier medical professionals who will take time from their busy, sometimes lifesaving careers to answer my email or phone call.

Here at LIVESTRONG.com, we believe in making that access as equitable as we can. In addition to the sources we quote within our articles, we work with a team of doctors, nurses, registered dietitians, physical therapists, certified personal trainers and other credentialed experts who review our articles to ensure they are accurate, thorough and up-to-date.

This expert review process is pretty simple: The pros read through drafts of LIVESTRONG.com articles related to their fields of expertise and leave notes where any information is unclear, lacks context, isn't accurate, cites outdated or unreliable research or poses any other kind of factual problem. Then our writers and editors address the experts' comments and implement their recommendations before publishing.

Articles covering the most complicated health and science topics with the biggest direct effect on the lives of our readers take highest priority for our reviewers.

We recruit our diverse team of reviewers from top medical institutions and established health organizations, and we're always eager to add fresh perspectives to this team. If you're interested in becoming an expert reviewer, we'd love to hear from you. You can also learn more about our expert reviewers.

Articles that have been reviewed by a credentialed subject-matter expert display that expert's name in the byline. That's just one of many visual signifiers that you can trust the information you find on LIVESTRONG.com.

To facilitate even greater access to this incredible team of experts, we recently launched a brand-new social media video series called Ask the Experts, where we're bringing our expert review network to life.

The very same professionals who review our content for accuracy and credibility will join us to answer common questions about sleep, digestion, heart health, mental health, diabetes, aging well and many more of the health topics we know you, our readers, are searching for.

You and I are going to turn to websites, newsletters and social media to learn more about our health, but in this era of medical misinformation, it's comforting to know we don't have to sacrifice authority or safety when we do so.

Yours in health,

P.S. I'd love to hear what you think. Please be in touch at [email protected].