Abstract
Searching for health information is one of the most popular activities on the Web. In this domain, users frequently encounter difficulties in query formulation, either because they lack knowledge of the proper medical terms or because they misspell them. To overcome these difficulties and attempt to retrieve higher-quality content, we developed a query suggestion system that provides alternative queries combining the users' native language and English language with lay and medico-scientific terminology. To assess how the language and terminology impact the use of suggestions, we conducted a user study with 40 subjects considering their English proficiency, health literacy and topic familiarity. Results show that suggestions are used most often at the beginning of search sessions. English suggestions tend to be preferred to the ones formulated in the users' native language, at all levels of English proficiency. Medico-scientific suggestions tend to be preferred to lay suggestions at higher levels of health literacy.

Abstract
Prior studies have shown that terminology support can improve health information retrieval but have not taken into account the characteristics of the user performing the search. In this chapter, the impact of translating queries' terms between lay and medico-scientific terminology, in users with different levels of health literacy and topic familiarity, is evaluated. Findings demonstrate that medico-scientific queries demand more from the users and are mostly aimed at health professionals. In addition, these queries retrieve documents that are less readable and less well understood by users. Despite this, medico-scientific queries are associated with higher precision in the top-10 retrieved documents results and tend slightly to generate knowledge with less incorrect contents, the researchers concluded that search engines should provide query suggestions with medico-scientific terminology, whenever the user is able to digest it, that is, in users above the lowest levels of health literacy and topic familiarity. On the other hand, retrieval systems should provide lay alternative queries in users with inadequate health literacy or in those unfamiliar with a topic. In fact, the quantity of incorrect contents in the knowledge that emerges from a medico-scientific session tends to decrease with topic familiarity and health literacy. In terms of topic familiarity, the opposite happens with Graded Average Precision. Moreover, users most familiar with a topic tend to have higher motivational relevance with medico-scientific queries than with lay queries. This work is the first to consider user context features while studying the impact of a query processing technique in several aspects of the retrieval process, including the medical accuracy of the acquired knowledge. © 2015 by Emerald Group Publishing Limited.

Abstract
The Web is frequently used as a way to access health information. In the health domain, the terminology can be very specific, frequently assuming a medico-scientific character. This can be a barrier to users who may be unable to understand the retrieved documents. Therefore, it would be useful to automatically assess how well a certain document will be understood by a certain user. In the present work, we analyse whether it is possible to predict the comprehension of documents using document features together with user features, and how well this can be achieved. We use an existing dataset, composed by health documents on the Web and their assessment in terms of comprehension by users, to build two multivariate prediction models for comprehension. Our best model showed very good results, with 96.51% accuracy. Our findings suggest features that can be considered by search engines to estimate comprehension. We found that user characteristics related to web and health search habits, such as the success of the users with Web search and the frequency of the users' health search, are some of the most influential user variables. The promising results obtained with this dataset with manual comprehension assessment will lead us to explore the automatic assessment of document and user characteristics. (C) 2016 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V.

Abstract
Searching for health information is one of the most popular activities on the web. In this domain, users often misspell or lack knowledge of the proper medical terms to use in queries. To overcome these difficulties and attempt to retrieve higher-quality content, we developed a query suggestion system that provides alternative queries combining the Portuguese or English language with lay or medico-scientific terminology. Here we evaluate this system's impact on the medical accuracy of the knowledge acquired during the search. Evaluation shows that simply providing these suggestions contributes to reduce the quantity of incorrect content. This indicates that even when suggestions are not clicked, they are useful either for subsequent queries' formulation or for interpreting search results. Clicking on suggestions, regardless of type, leads to answers with more correct content. An analysis by type of suggestion and user characteristics showed that the benefits of certain languages and terminologies are more perceptible in users with certain levels of English proficiency and health literacy. This suggests a personalization of this suggestion system toward these characteristics. Overall, the effect of language is more preponderant than the effect of terminology. Clicks on English suggestions are clearly preferable to clicks on Portuguese ones.

Abstract
English is by far the most used language on the web. In some domains, the existence of less content in the users' native language may not be problematic and even help to cope with the information overload. Yet, in domains such as health, where information quality is critical, a larger quantity of information may mean easier access to higher quality content. Query translation may be a good strategy to access content in other languages, but the presence of medical terms in health queries makes the translation process more difficult, even for users with very good language proficiencies. In this study, we evaluate how translating a health query affects users with different language proficiencies. We chose English as the non-native language because it is a widely spoken language and it is the most used language on the web. Our findings suggest that non-English-speaking users having at least elementary English proficiency can benefit from a system that suggests English alternatives for their queries, or automatically retrieves English content from a non-English query. This awareness of the user profile results in higher precision, more accurate medical knowledge, and better access to high-quality content. Moreover, the suggestions of English-translated queries may also trigger new health search strategies.

Abstract
Relevance is usually estimated by search engines using document content, disregarding the user behind the search and the characteristics of the task. In this work, we look at relevance as framed in a situational context, calling it situational relevance, and analyze if it is possible to predict it using documents, users and tasks characteristics. Using an existing dataset composed of health web documents, relevance judgments for information needs, user and task characteristics, we build a multivariate prediction model for situational relevance. Our model has an accuracy of 77.17%. Our findings provide insights into features that could improve the estimation of relevance by search engines, helping to conciliate the systemic and situational views of relevance. In a near future we will work on the automatic assessment of document, user and task characteristics.