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U.VA. AND IQ HEALTH CREATE AWARD-WINNING WEB SITE

An Internet health site that helps hundreds of Charlottesville employees has won a World Wide Web Health Award for outstanding quality. It is one of 25 winners, which include drkoop.com and WebMD.

The site, www.iqhealthvirginia.com, was created as part of a research study at the University of Virginia to promote health and substance abuse prevention. The study, which began in 1999 and ends this month, is funded by the Center for Substance Abuse Prevention of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

The U.Va. departments of Psychiatric Medicine and Health Evaluation Sciences partnered with the Institute for Quality Health Virginia (IQ Health Virginia), which provides employee assistance, occupational medicine and health enhancement programs to area employers, including U.Va.

An IQ Health Virginia Web site offered us the perfect place to get information on substance abuse prevention to people in the workplace, said Adrienne Keller, associate professor of psychiatric medicine at U.Va. and principal investigator.

The Web site has successfully reached 700 managers, who Keller said have the most contact with employees, yet have little time for getting more information through meetings or paperwork. The site is also accessible any time via home computers.

The web site helps people improve and maintain their health while protecting their privacy and confidentiality, said Rebecca Reeve, program manager for evaluation and development at IQ Health Virginia.

September 6, 2000