Health Ratings

Consumer Reports Health Ratings Center

The Consumers Reports Health Ratings Center provides up-to-date comparisons of certain medical tests and treatments, drugs, devices, health-care providers, health-insurance plans, and hospitals. Our analyses and ratings of these services and products can help consumers navigate an increasingly expensive and complex health-care system.

While Consumer Reports has tested consumer products, including health products, for over 70 years, we are now expanding our efforts to evaluate health services so consumers can make their own informed comparisons and decisions. Through the Health Ratings Center, we have developed rigorous procedures of analysis. We hold high standards for those we work with, how we deal with conflicts of interest, how we use data objectively, and how we hold ourselves accountable for decisions we make.

Health information includes more than data. It also includes a variety of commercial influences that shape how we think about health and make decisions. We take these commercial factors into account when we evaluate the data and do our best to present a balanced picture to consumers. Our experts are independent of industry, so we can analyze information while keeping our focus only on you, the consumer.

The Health Ratings Center works with experts who are willing to adhere to Consumer Reports' principles and standards. These include:

• Information that provides good quality evidence, transparent methodologies, and current information.
• Rigorous internal review by our doctors, health researchers, and statisticians.
• Continuous evaluation of our ratings efforts through surveys, focus groups, and other methods.

We'd like to hear from you. So send any input or ideas to John Santa, M.D. M.P.H., Director of the Health Ratings Center.