HIV/AIDS Outreach: Curriculum Development and Skills Training to Health and Information Professionals

With funding from the National Library of Medicine HIV/AIDS Community Information Outreach Program (ACIOP), librarians at the University of Florida Health Sciences Libraries partnered with university and community groups to facilitate collaboration, develop new information resources, develop information-seeking skills, and raise general awareness surrounding HIV/AIDS risks, prevention, and treatment. This article describes the skills development elements of the project, including development and implementation of an HIV/AIDS information resource curriculum for health care providers, social services professionals, and public librarians within the project’s partner organizations.     

Partnering with the Public Library for Health Care Education: An Evaluation of Affordable Care Act Messages

Despite implementation of most of the provisions of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) by 2014, the public still has questions about the health care law. To assess the potential of using the library as a hub for ACA education, we tested existing and new culturally relevant messages about the health care law with twenty-seven community members. Participants discussed the message prototypes, including the visual components and promotional content, and provided advice to modify content and design to best reach target audiences. Future research can follow this example to engage libraries and community members in developing and evaluating culturally relevant health messages.     

Sharing MedlinePlus®/MEDLINE® for information literacy education (SMILE): a dental public health information project

The SMILE project represented a partnership among the University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio Libraries, the Gateway Clinic in Laredo, and the San Antonio Metropolitan Health District. The project focused on improving dental practitioners' access to reliable information resources and integrating the best evidence into public health dental practice. Through its training program, SMILE cultivated a set of "power information users" among the dentists, dental hygienists, and community health workers (promotores) who provided public health preventive care and oral health education. The dental public health practitioners gained information literacy skills and increased their knowledge about reliable sites such as blogs, PubMed?, and MedlinePlus?. This project fostered opportunities for expanded partnerships with public health personnel.     

Sharing MedlinePlus®/MEDLINE® for Information Literacy Education (SMILE): A Dental Public Health Information Project

The SMILE project represented a partnership among the University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio Libraries, the Gateway Clinic in Laredo, and the San Antonio Metropolitan Health District. The project focused on improving dental practitioners' access to reliable information resources and integrating the best evidence into public health dental practice. Through its training program, SMILE cultivated a set of “power information users” among the dentists, dental hygienists, and community health workers (promotores) who provided public health preventive care and oral health education. The dental public health practitioners gained information literacy skills and increased their knowledge about reliable sites such as blogs, PubMed®, and MedlinePlus®. This project fostered opportunities for expanded partnerships with public health personnel.     

Managing Health Care in Oregon: The Search for a Civic Bioethics

Managed health care deliberations in Oregon point to a "civic bioethics" model to resolve allocation issues through publicly articulated community values and priorities that influence legislative action. Communication practices in the Oregon experiment provide data to develop an evaluative framework to assess public moral deliberation in value-laden contexts such as health care distribution. The Oregon experience also points to dialogical virtues to heighten citizens' ethical sensibilities and political will, discursive tools to inform ethical communication practices in a civic bioethics model.     

Managing Health Care in Oregon: The Search for a Civic Bioethics

Managed health care deliberations in Oregon point to a "civic bioethics" model to resolve allocation issues through publicly articulated community values and priorities that influence legislative action. Communication practices in the Oregon experiment provide data to develop an evaluative framework to assess public moral deliberation in value-laden contexts such as health care distribution. The Oregon experience also points to dialogical virtues to heighten citizens' ethical sensibilities and political will, discursive tools to inform ethical communication practices in a civic bioethics model.     

The hospital library as provider of consumer health information

The health care environment of the 1990s demands that hospital libraries develop creative strategies for providing consumer health information (CHI). Librarians at the Reuben L. Sharp Health Sciences Library at Cooper Hospital/University Medical Center have developed a multifaceted approach to the problem. Using a combination of institutional resources, private funding, and cooperative arrangements with public libraries, the Sharp Library helps to serve the consumer health information needs of the southern New Jersey community.     

图书馆开展社区公共卫生信息服务策略研究

图书馆开展社区公共卫生服务是图书馆的使命与社会教育职责在社区发展中的表现形式。本文通过对比国内外图书馆开展相关服务的实践,总结出当前我国图书馆开展公共卫生信息服务存在的主要问题,论述了图书馆开展公共卫生信息服务需要坚持的基本原则、工作目标和实现路径,提出了图书馆开展社区公共卫生信息服务的工作方针、角色定位、工作目标、内容体系等。     

The medical libraries of Vietnam--a service in transition.

The medical libraries of Vietnam maintain high profiles within their institutions and are recognized by health care professionals and administrators as an important part of the health care system. Despite the multitude of problems in providing even a minimal level of medical library services, librarians, clinicians, and researchers nevertheless are determined that enhanced services be made available. Currently, services can be described as basic and unsophisticated, yet viable and surprisingly well organized. The lack of hard western currency required to buy materials and the lack of library technology will be major obstacles to improving information services. Vietnam, like many developing nations, is about to enter a period of technological upheaval, which ultimately will result in a transition from the traditional library limited by walls to a national resource that will rely increasingly on electronic access to international knowledge networks. Technology such as CD-ROM, Integrated Services Digital Network (ISDN), and satellite telecommunication networks such as Internet can provide the technical backbone to provide access to remote and widely distributed electronic databases to support the information needs of the health care community. Over the long term, access to such databases likely will be cost-effective, in contrast to the assuredly astronomical cost of building a comparable domestic print collection. The advent of new, low-cost electronic technologies probably will revolutionize health care information services in developing nations. However, for the immediate future, the medical libraries of Vietnam will require ongoing sustained support from the international community, so that minimal levels of resources will be available to support the information needs of the health care community. It is remarkable, and a credit to the determination of Vietnam's librarians that, in a country with a legacy of war, economic deprivation, and international isolation, they have somehow managed to provide a sound basic level of information services for health care professionals.     

Living with a rare health condition: the influence of a support community and public stigma on communication,stress, and available support

People affected by rare diseases often have limited coping resources and sometimes face stigma. They build communities with others who share their conditions, but not all members may benefit from these communities. This study investigated how adults with a rare genetic health condition (Alpha-1 antitrypsin deficiency; AATD) think about both the Alpha-1 community and public stigma about AATD, and how these cognitions predict their communication responses and well-being. The results showed that people with AATD-encountered stigmatization from various sources. Stronger public stigma predicted more secrecy, more stress, and less available support. Stronger group identification with the Alpha-1 community predicted less secrecy; stronger group activism predicted more available support and more communication to challenge stigmatizers. Post hoc analyses showed significant interactions between public stigma and group cognitions on communication to challenge stigmatizers. Practical implications for bolstering communities to improve the well-being of people with rare diseases were discussed.     

The Minimization of Public Health Risks in Newspapers after Hurricane Katrina

During natural disasters, mass media facilitate the timely provision of accurate information about health risks to the public. This study informs our understanding of such public health discourse, utilizing a content-analysis of 235 newspaper articles in four major metropolitan newspapers published in the five weeks after Hurricane Katrina hit the Gulf Coast in August 2005. These data reveal that a small and diminishing number of articles included public health information over time, detailed the hurricane impact on affected communities, and used reliable health sources. The implications for future research from a public health and media relations perspective are discussed.     

网络健康社区知识共享的影响因素研究

[目的/意义] 探究网络健康社区知识共享的影响因素,对优化网络健康社区知识服务、促进健康知识的交流与传播具有重要意义。[方法/过程] 将网络健康社区中的知识划分为公共健康知识和个人健康知识,依据社会认知理论构建影响因素模型,并利用结构方程模型进行验证和分析。[结果/结论] 数据分析结果表明,自我效能、利他主义、社会信任、社会认同、感知有用性等变量与公共健康知识和个人健康知识共享行为都呈显著正相关,感知风险与公共健康知识共享行为无显著相关性,与个人健康知识共享行为呈显著负相关。     

Spanish Language Children’s Books Focusing on Health Literacy: An Annotated Bibliography

An efficient and economical health care system requires that patients and providers understand each other. For Latino patients, the challenges to effective communication include limited Spanish language ability of providers, limited English language ability of patients, lack of knowledge of the health system, and a generally low educational attainment resulting in general low literacy and numeracy abilities. Both literacy and public health research suggests that focusing on family systems and children is a good path to helping the entire Latino community to navigate better healthcare. This poster provides a selection of titles of readily available Spanish and bilingual (Spanish/English) children’s books that focus on health literacy as well as a series that addresses children’s health issues written for low literacy Spanish-speaking parents. The bibliography is organized into the following categories: Exercise, Healthy Habits, The Human Body, Hygiene, Nutrition, Parenting, and Understanding Difference. It is incumbent upon those in public service, including public libraries, the educational system, and literacy experts, as well as those in the medical professions to try and remedy this situation. Ideally, the titles for children should be read with parents or teachers. This bibliography should be useful for public librarians, school librarians, academic librarians collecting for education departments, literacy experts, and medical and health sciences librarians.     

Providing health information to the general public: a survey of current practices in academic health sciences libraries

A questionnaire was mailed to 148 publicly and privately supported academic health sciences libraries affiliated with Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC-accredited medical schools in the United States and Canada to determine level of access and services provided to the general public. For purposes of this study, "general public" was defined as nonaffiliated students or health care professionals, attorneys and other nonhealth-related professionals, patients from affiliated or other hospitals or clinics, and general consumers. One hundred five (71%) libraries responded. Results showed 98% of publicly supported libraries and 88% of privately supported libraries provided access to some or all of the general public. Publicly supported libraries saw greater numbers of public patrons, often provided more services, and were more likely to circulate materials from their collections than were privately supported libraries. A significant number of academic health sciences libraries housed a collection of consumer-oriented materials and many provided some level of document delivery service, usually for a fee. Most allowed the public to use some or all library computers. Results of this study indicated that academic health sciences libraries played a significant role in serving the information-seeking public and suggested a need to develop written policies or guidelines covering the services that will be provided to minimize the impact of this service on primary clientele.     

Facilitating access to consumer health information: a collaborative approach employing applied research

Responsibility for the provision of consumer health information typically lies within the public library domain or the health sciences library arena. In many communities, both types of libraries provide support for consumer health information services, often with varying levels of expertise. Public library employees may or may not be trained in the use of health and biomedical information resources. Conversely, health sciences library staff may or may not be familiar with information needs of the lay public within their community. To offset these potential differences, a model was developed to assess the health information needs of community members and to provide training for public library staff regarding use of relevant electronic consumer health information resources.     

Integrating diversity,equity, and inclusion principles into instruction: Case studies from the University of Florida's Health Science Center Libraries

Librarians at the University of Florida Health Science Center Libraries have begun to intentionally incorporate diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) principles into teaching during design, implementation, and evaluation. This article uses four case studies to provide an overview of the librarians' approaches to inclusive teaching (1) an annual workshop for Physical Therapy students on the intersection between DEI, health literacy, and patient education; (2) a librarian-taught one-credit course for public health students, which was revised to create a more inviting syllabus and integrate elements of universal design; (3) an annual project for first year medical students highlighting health disparities and community resources; and (4) piloting the application of critical librarianship principles in library standalone sessions on database searching and reference management. Suggestions are provided for other librarians who are interested in developing a culture of inclusive teaching in their own libraries.     

Evolution of an academic–public library partnership

A partnership to improve access to health information via an urban public library system was established in St. Louis, Missouri, in 2011. A multiyear project was outlined that included an information needs assessment, a training class for public library staff, information kiosks at library branches for delivering printed consumer health materials, and a series of health-related programming. The partnership evolved to include social service and community organizations to carry out project goals and establish a sustainable program that met the health and wellness interests of the community.     

Records guardianship: security and protection in the workplace

Ensuring the proper protection of records presents numerous challenges. The archival community has adequately addressed how to recognise, and deal with, threats to the conservation and preservation care of records, but security risks in the workplace are often not given appropriate attention. The identification of potential sources of risk, at all stages of a record's existence, and the discovery of solutions to prevent or mitigate these risks is crucial to guaranteeing the ongoing care and complete protection of records of all types.     

Radio's Role During Hurricane Katrina: A Case Study of WWL Radio and the United Radio Broadcasters of New Orleans

This narrative case study examines the news and information role played by WWL Radio and the United Radio Broadcasters of New Orleans during the real life drama of Hurricane Katrina. The performance of United demonstrates that media consolidation, deregulation and the threat of emerging technologies do not justify abandoning the idea that broadcasters still have a moral and ethical responsibility to serve the public interests of audiences; that traditional radio should stop looking over its shoulder at threats posed by other media, and instead should make use of the medium's greatest strength—taking care of the communities it serves on the local level. This study provides further proof that traditional radio is still vital, especially in times of disaster and catastrophe; that radio's attention to the local community, and its ability to collaborate among other broadcast outlets in that community, may be two of many distinct factors that keep the public tuned in to the medium.