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Nine Projects Funded to Promote Community-Based Health Information Outreach
Printer-friendly VersionThe National Library of Medicine has funded nine projects that will rely on partnerships with community-based organizations as a strategy for promoting access to health information among minority and other underserved populations. All nine projects will last 18 months and will implement plans developed as part of a previously funded planning phase during which project leaders undertook a community assessment. The planning and implementation of the projects rely on a process of community engagement. The projects were funded through the National Network of Libraries of Medicine. Funding for both the planning and implementation of the projects was provided by funds from the National Center on Minority Health and Health Disparities to the National Library of Medicine.
District of Columbia
George Washington University
Washington, DC
Health Information Partners
Project Director: Karyn Pomerantz
Health Information Partners (HIPS) will use a multi-faceted approach to promote online health information resources and teach technology and health literacy skills. HIPS will promote health information access among low-income communities through health fairs, tenant organizations, and community meetings. The project will provide hands-on training as part of repeated visits to clinics, health centers and public libraries. The project will achieve its goals by partnering with organizations that reach large sections of the Washington, DC metropolitan region, focusing on health information requested by learners and indicated by local health statistics, and training community health advocates who will serve as coaches and trainers.
Hawaii
Pacific Resources for Education and Learning
Honolulu, HI
Healthy Information Partnership in the Republic of the Marshall Islands
Project Director: Thomas Barlow
This project targets teenage parents in the Republic of the Marshall Islands (RMI). During this project’s planning phase, Pacific Resources for Education and Learning (PREL) partnered with several health and social service providers in the RMI to develop and administer a community assessment survey. Findings from the survey underscore the importance of personal contact as the preferred means of reaching teen parents. PREL will collaborate with Youth to Youth in Health (YYIH), an existing community-based organization that relies on performances and workshops to disseminate health information. The RMI’s ministry of health will provide the expertise to ensure that the health content areas are covered accurately. The RMI’s national library and ministry of internal affairs will review all materials developed for cultural appropriateness and assist with distributing them to specific communities. An adult education specialist from the ministry of education will also assist with the development of all materials used.
Illinois
Loyola University
Maywood, IL
Electronic Real-time Education Aiding Community Health
Project Director: Logan Ludwig
Loyola University will strengthen and enhance access to health information to underserved populations in Maywood, Bellwood, and Cicero, Illinois by providing “on demand” health information to the patients and families served by Loyola University Health System Mobile Health Unit and Loyola Children's Center at Maywood. The overall goal of this project is to help patients and families find the health information needed to understand illnesses, illness prevention and treatment options in order to support informed decisions about their care.
Louisiana
Louisiana State University
Shreveport, LA
Community Outreach Partnership Project
Project Director: Dennis Pernotto
Several community agencies in Shreveport, Louisiana and a number of entities within Louisiana State University have come together to create a different approach to managing and preventing diabetes in the Allendale and surrounding communities. This family-centered, community-based diabetes project will help members of these communities have better access to appropriate health information, health screening and health education through the relationships created by this project. The specific interventions of the project include nutrition education, exercise behavior change counseling, nurse practitioner diabetic care and patient education.
South Carolina
Medical University of South Carolina
Charleston, SC
Allendale on the Move
Project Director: Nancy McKeehan
Allendale on the Moveis an action plan addressing health information and education needs identified in Allendale County, South Carolina. The project will give the people of Allendale County the tools to make informed health decisions and to raise the community’s collective awareness about the importance of a healthy community. Project goals are (1) to make health an important consideration in the decisions people make for themselves, their families, and their community; (2) to improve the health knowledge and decision-making skills of Allendale county citizens by introducing them to accessible sources of health information and teaching them how to find and evaluate health information; and (3) to establish Allendale on the Move as a component of the county’s overall development initiative.
Medical University of South Carolina
Charleston, SC
Rural Health eAccess Project
Project Director: Barbara Carlson
This project aims to strengthen a partnership among African American community organizations, libraries, and lay community health advisors in Charleston and Georgetown Counties, South Carolina. The project will develop an educational program to train a cadre of volunteers to learn how to use Internet and library resources to search, find, and disseminate reliable health information about diabetes and its related complications. The volunteers, many of whom will be computer savvy youth, will then train other community members at easily accessible locations within the community for Internet access.
Texas
Houston Academy of Medicine–Texas Medical Center
Houston, TX
F2F Connection
Project Director: Jeff Huber
The Houston Academy of Medicine–Texas Medical Center Library will partner collaboratively with Family to Family Network and the School of Library and Information Studies at Texas Woman’s University to implement a project that will improve access to health information and eliminate disparities among underserved and under-represented populations. The proposed work, F2F Connection, will build on the examination of the health information needs of Texas families that have children with disabilities and/or chronic illnesses accomplished during the planning phase in order to facilitate access to relevant information resources.
Virginia
Virginia Commonwealth University
Richmond, VA
Community Outreach Information Network
Project Director: Jean Shipman
The goal of this project is to increase access to quality health information for the greater Richmond metropolitan area’s high-risk populations. The project will strengthen relationships among Virginia Commonwealth University’s consumer health information resource centers and Richmond-area community agencies serving the target populations. Partnering community agencies include public libraries, local pharmacies, senior centers and free clinics.
Washington
Somali Community Services of Seattle
Seattle, WA
Providing Health Information to the King County Somali Community
Project Director: Abdulkadir Jama
This project will improve the delivery of health and emergency-related information to members of the Somali community in Seattle and King County. It will identify and produce needed health information materials so that they can be shared in the local community and more widely. The project will document the process of creating and disseminating the information so that others, including care providers and the local public health department, can communicate with the Somali community more effectively.
Last updated: 19 August 2004
First published: 19 August 2004
Metadata| Permanence level: Permanence Not Guaranteed