first-time user

welcome to healthfinder®

healthfinder® is a free guide to reliable health information, developed by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. The site provides an easy-to-use, searchable index of carefully reviewed health information from over 1,500 government agencies, nonprofit organizations, and universities. You won't find any 'mystery' Web sites here!

take a tour

Are you ready to explore healthfinder®? This tour will describe the key parts of the site and link to actual pages in a second browser window so you can see what's being talked about.

The new healthfinder® is organized by A-Z lists. Meaning, that you will often encounter A-Z lists, which you will use to find the first letter of the topic you are searching for—just select the Try It! link wherever you see it.

2. During the tour, you will often see this Try it! button/link. If you select this button/link, it will open a second window (another browser that opens on top of this page). This enables you to not only continue with the tour (see this page), but also follow along in the second window which takes you to the specific section of healthfinder® that we are touring. Sometimes you may be directed to open several second windows to compare different ways of searching healthfinder®.

Let's search for a topic

For this tour, let's try to search for "cancer" information.
Method 1: Okay, let's start on the homepage. Try it! We can type "cancer" into the search box at top of the page.

Method 2: Try it!
1. On the homepage, select "health library". For current healthfinder® users, you will see that we have combined information from "hot topics", "more tools", and "smart choices" here. Based on user demand, we have also expanded "prevention and wellness" information.
2. Select "all topics".
3. Select "C" for Cancer.
4. Select "Cancer".

If you compare results from these two methods, you will see that both pages have a link on the right side of the page "refine your search" for Method 2 and "narrow your search"for Method 1.

Let's explore "narrow your search"

In the Method 1 window, select "narrow your search". Here you can narrow your search of cancer by date, documents or organizations, basic categories like clinical trials or treatments, alternative medicine, diseases and conditions, or prevention and wellness, English or Spanish resources.

Let's explore "refine your search"

In the Method 2 window, let's select "refine your search". Here you can refine your search of cancer by basic categories like clinical trials or treatments, English or Spanish resources, more specific types of cancer, broader topics, and related topics.

Let's explore "just for you"

On the homepage, select "just for you". Try it! For current healthfinder® users, you will recognize some of the age, and gender related sections from the original "just for you" section. We expanded "minority health" and have provided specific information for different racial/ethnic groups. We have also added caregivers, community leaders, and people with disabilities. Why don't you give it a try, and explore one of these sections. Keep in mind that like Method 2 in the tour for "Let's search for a topic", you will need to select the letter of the topic you are searching for.

Let's explore "health care"

On the homepage, select "health care". Try it! In response to user demand for more information related to navigating the health care system, we have created this section. Current healthfinder® users will recognize some of the topics from "smart choices".

Let's explore "directory of healthfinder organizations"

On the homepage, select "directory of healthfinder organizations". Try it! We are excited to be bringing you this new feature, where you can search for any organization that is a healthfinder® partner. You can trust all the information on these organization's websites. You can either type the name of the organization you are looking for, or you can select in the A-Z list the first letter of the topic that might be the focus of the organization you are searching for.

Let's explore the unique features of healthfinder®

On the homepage, on the right column, you will see a section on "health news". Find the latest health alerts and other daily news that we have found for you. Notice that the news is updated daily! Select the "more" at the bottom of this section, if you want to see all of the news for today.

Underneath the health news section, you will see a section named "today's online checkup". Every time you refresh this page, you will get a different online checkup. Or you can select "more" and get the whole list of online checkups that we have carefully selected for you. Take one and see how much healthier you can be!