A Healthy Strategy for iVillage

New York City-based iVillage Inc. signed a content partnership
deal with the National Women’s Health Resource Center
Inc. (NWHRC), an independent, non-profit organization dedicated to
educating consumers about women’s health and wellness.

The deal will add content on women’s health conditions and prevention and
treatment of illnesses to iVillage’s iVillageHealth.com. Financial
arrangements were not disclosed.

iVillageHealth.com will incorporate NWHRC’s content, which is reviewed by an
advisory council of women’s health experts, in a new center called Women’s
Health. The NWHRC will share information written for women on more than 70
topics, each with sections covering overview, prevention, diagnosis,
treatment, key questions to ask, facts, and quizzes.

“A recent study … showed that more than 63 percent of women with Internet
access looked for health information online last year,” said Dr. Holly
Atkinson, president of iVillageHealth.com. “More than 40 percent of those
women expressed concern about the privacy and the credibility of information
delivered over the Web. We believe that linking iVillageHealth’s resources
and the NWHRC’s trustworthy information will answer their concerns.”

Just last week iVillage partnered with the Society for Women’s Health
Research (SWHR), a non-profit organization dedicated to women’s health
research, to provide online users with the information gleaned from research
examining the impact that sex differences have on health.

iVillage, which also operates Lamaze Publishing and the Newborn Channel, said
last month that it is acquiring Women.com Networks in a stock deal that at
the time was valued at $47 million. iVillage said then that it would use a
$40 million investment by Hearst to complete the transaction. iVillage stock
was up 3 cents in early trading today to 65 cents a share.