High Usage Hampers HSPH Site

Media publicity generated this week over a Harvard Web site that allows people to assess their risk for five common diseases in the United States caused the site to be temporarily inaccessible due to heavy traffic.

Yourdiseaserisk.harvard.edu, created by the Harvard Center for Cancer Protection (HCCP) at the Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH), features a risk index for cancer, heart disease, diabetes, osteoperosis, and stroke.

An article about the site published in The Wall Street Journal on Tuesday caused 22,000 people with unique IP addresses to try the site in a two-hour window, according to Webmaster of HSPH Deane Eastwood.

The spike in the number of site visitors slowed down HSPH’s Web site until site administrators temporarily took down Your Disease Risk.

Your Disease Risk started out as a cancer risk index site in 2000 and expanded in 2004 to include other diseases, according to Michelle Samplin-Salgado, a HSPH spokeswoman.

The site, which asks visitors to complete brief surveys about their lifestyles, has generated consistent traffic for years, generally averaging 2,000 different visitors a day, according to Eastwood.

This traffic forced the Web site to be taken down five or six times in the past, he said.

Representing over a decade of research and collaboration among experts and practitioners, Your Disease Risk is intended to encourage people to adopt healthier lifestyles, Director of HCCP Graham A. Colditz said in a statement.

“The far-reaching benefits of a healthy lifestyle become apparent as people click through the site and see that a single risk factor can impact their risk of many diseases,” he said.

Continuously updated, the site most recently launched a Spanish version after using research from focus groups to adapt the site for Spanish-speaking populations, according to Samplin-Salgado.