EHSLibrary » health information

New study on urban health literacy & asthma

Todd Vandenbark — Thu, 15 Mar 2012 15:07:26 +0000

The University of Rochester recently conducted a study to learn about health literacy levels and resources for caregivers of children with asthma in urban areas. They sought to learn what sources of health information were used, access to and use of the Internet for information, and “determine the association between caregivers’ health literacy and use of various health information sources, including the Internet.” Participants were rated as having “adequate” health literacy if the could read at or above a 9th grade level, or “limited” health literacy if not. The study found that 37% of caregivers had limited health literacy (HL), and were significantly less likely to have Internet access in their homes, let alone access health information online. Caregivers place the highest trust in their health care professionals, and those with Adequate HL were significantly less likely to trust health information found through non-print media compared to parents with Limited HL.

The results suggest that most caregivers seek health information from a variety of resources, including print, non-print media (such as television and radio), family & friends. Because health care professionals are the primary, most-trusted source of information, the authors encourage health care professionals to be mindful of these caregivers’ potential lack of HL skills, as it can be a source for poor communication between these groups.

While the data obtained in this study is helpful, and is based on previous research, the authors’ hard work is presented primarily in text and tables. Comparisons of their findings to previous research are done entirely in text, where perhaps a graph or other visual form would make it clearer and more understandable.

Health literacy: the need for “plain talk”

Todd Vandenbark — Wed, 17 Aug 2011 16:34:07 +0000

Searching Twitter using the hashtag “#healthliteracy,” I came across an item that sounded exciting: “MAXIMUS Center for Health Literacy to Hold Conference in September: ‘Plain Talk in Complex Times.’” Presented in collaboration with the American Public Health Association, the conference offers:

Six preconference workshops: build your skills for communicating about health—in person, on the Web, and in print.
Learn from today’s decision makers and experts.
Two full days of speakers, panels, and skill-building workshops, plus time to meet with colleagues.

Key topics are listed as:

Oral communication
eHealth Literacy
Usability

To a librarian in an academic medical library, this sounded like a great resource for its intended audience: “physicians, nurses, health education specialists, and public health professionals.” The agenda covers areas such as social media, writing for the web, translation/interpretation, financial literacy, graphic design, accessibility, communicating with seniors, medicaid and health IT, and military programs. It features leaders in these fields lecturing and providing pre-conference workshops on all of these areas.

But no librarians.

While it is important and laudable to help health professionals improve how they communicate information to patients and the public, it is just as important to teach patients how to find and understand this information on their own. At the very least, this event should have invited someone from the National Library of Medicine to talk about MedlinePlus and MedlinePlus Connect, and how they can be used to provide important information to patients and clients.

Searching on Twitter: health literacy

Todd Vandenbark — Tue, 12 Jul 2011 15:15:16 +0000

Twitter is the microblogging and networking platform where anyone can post (“tweet”) content or links to other content using only 140 characters. Topics can be labeled by putting a hash tag (“#”) in front of a single (such as #cancer) or compound word (such as #informationliteracy). If you search for a given topic, the results are like a snapshot of what Twitter users are thinking and writing on that subject. Searches can be saved, and with Twitter’s application programming interface (API), search information can be pulled and analyzed.

Here are a few examples of what’s being discussed (tweeted about) on health literacy (#healthliteracy) on Twitter:

The non-profit organization Health Literacy Missouri (@HealthLitMO) just published a paper titled “Health Literacy Essential to Successful Implementation of Accountable Care Organizations (ACOs)” bySusan Kendig, JD, MSN and Arthur Culbert, PhD. The paper points out that our current health system’s incentives for health care organizations “rewards volume and intensity of services, resulting in fragmentation and higher costs with little attention to value.” It goes on to document how health literacy is directly related to health outcomes.
@apdolan has sought the thoughts and input of others on how the new Google+ might be used for health activism for an upcoming blog posting.
@alixefloyd cheered and linked to an article in the NY Times about how more medical schools are screening their applicants for people skills.
@ACUnderserved publicized information about a “Health Literacy Innovators Award Contest” sponsored by Health Literacy Innovations, a privately held company that “creates tools to help eliminate medical mistakes and confusion due to low health literacy.”

At first, even this author was skeptical of Twitter. But when one can sample what is of current interest on any given topic instantly, it becomes clear the value this platform has.

What topics do you follow on Twitter? If you have used it for research or to take the pulse of people on a particular subject, how helpful have you found it to be? Tell us!

Suprising top topic in online discussions

Todd Vandenbark — Tue, 19 Oct 2010 21:58:34 +0000

What if you could catch a glimpse of all online conversations and figure out what the most popular topics are? Synthesio, “an international, multi-lingual web monitoring and research company” founded in France (with offices in the U.S. and U.K.) claims to have analyzed over 200 million online conversations, dividing their results into 40 different categories. The most popular category is “health” with 14% of the total. Below is a chart depicting their results.

What does this mean for libraries in general and medical libraries specifically? Tell us what you think!

Breaking language barriers

Todd Vandenbark — Mon, 27 Sep 2010 16:31:41 +0000

Do you know someone who needs health information but English is not her/his primary language? Medline Plus‘ website offers links to health information in other languages, from Amharic to Urdu and Vietnamese. In addition, by clicking on a link located on the home page, you can view Medline Plus in a Spanish-language version. This service is provided by the U.S. National Library of Medicine and the National Institutes of Health, and best of all it’s free!

MedlinePlus has a new look

Todd Vandenbark — Wed, 14 Jul 2010 15:53:03 +0000

MedlinePlus has been redesigned with a new layout and color scheme. Highlights of the new design include:

A Videos & Cool Tools page that makes multimedia content easier to find and searchable.
A Share button on all health topic pages and interactive tutorials that allows you to share links to MedlinePlus through your favorite social networks. See the Diabetic Diet topic page as an example.
A medical dictionary search box on the English homepage for quick look-up of medical terms.
A search cloud widget on the homepage, and a widgets page where you can find options for embedding MedlinePlus content in your own blogs, personalized homepages, and other sites.

Thanks to Siobhan Champ-Blackwell, Community Outreach Liaison at Creighton University Health Sciences Library, for the information!