As Mashable reported last month, 90 percent of Americans who are online use the Internet to search for health resources and 61 percent of people do so instead of visiting a doctor. That said, the Internet is increasingly being seen as a source for answers to questions that can have a profound impact on one’s health.

Enter Quora, a Q&A site which seeks to build the world’s largest knowledge base. The site, while seems to spin around the digital media world, has begun to serve as landing place for health-seeking behaviors online. In a world where everyone’s an expert, Quora empowers its users to increase the quality of health information online. With that in mind, here’s a few quick points about what you need to know if someone in the health space asks you about what Quora could mean for them.

Any other ideas for how health communication pros can look to the resources of Quora? Let us know by commenting below.

ChaChaPedia

Quora is an online resource that aggregates questions and answers on a range of topics created, moderated and validated by its users. Its mission is simple: match people asking questions with the people best suited to answer them. I’d like to think that if ChaCha and Wikipedia were to have a baby together, Quora would be it.

Functionality

There are six main actions that users take on Quora: browse, follow, ask, answer, rate and organize. Users search for topics, questions and people of interest, and they are able to keep tabs on each via the “follow” function and e-mail notifications. If users are looking for answers to a specific question, they are encouraged to first search and see if it exists, and if not, they can add it. After a question is answered via a comment-type function, users are encouraged to rate the answer on level of “helpfulness” and optimize for search by categorizing the topic.

Look Who’s Talking

While the most frequently discussed topics seem to be tech-related (internet startups, Twitter, Facebook, technology in general), we are also beginning to see more health-related topics and health professionals have begun to use their expertise to answer questions (KevinMD outlined this in a post earlier this week). By conducting a search for health-related issues, from nutrition to pharma, we found that there is both a market and a need for accurate information and resources. Similarly to the slow-but-steady adoption of Twitter and blogging by health professionals, it’s a safe guess that more HPs will begin to dole out advice on Quora, as well.

Let the Best Answer Win

Quora provides a unique opportunity for health professionals to position and promote themselves as credible and trusted sources in an online sea of misinformation and bad advice. Thanks to the “let the best answer win” approach to self-moderated content, the hope is that the good (reliable and accurate HP advice) will outvote the ugly. While the effectiveness of this approach is TBD, we have seen that the majority of users are educated enough to distinguish the experts from the “experts” when given the opportunity.

Research/Insights

Quora offers organizations the unique advantage to gain insight about common questions users have about their products and/or related issues that can be leveraged to create new content and refine search. From specific illnesses to general health and wellness, Quora can be used to conduct mini-audits about the information-seeking behaviors of an audience, including frequently asked questions and word choice.