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Libraries have historically organized materials about people with disabilities according to conventions created by medical and social scientific communities, thereby reproducing dominant, often pathologizing and marginalizing discourses about disabilities. This paper focuses on libraries' treatment of subjects related to physical disabilities by analyzing the National Library of Medicine's Medical Subject Headings, Library of Congress Subject Headings, the Library of Congress Classification, and the Dewey Decimal Classification. We use the lens of stigma as first theorized by Erving Goffman to reveal some of the processes and practices by which materials are relegated to the margins on the shelves and in the catalog. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The publication output of Library and Information Science (LIS) faculty teaching health courses has not been analyzed. The purpose of this bibliometric analysis was to examine publication patterns of full-time LIS faculty that teach health-related courses for library science programs in the United States and Canada. Full-time LIS faculty teaching health-related courses in American Library Association (ALA)--accredited programs were identified by searching course listings, faculty profiles, and syllabi from ALA-accredited school websites and contacting deans and directors of schools. The 29 LIS faculty that were identified and met the inclusion criteria were contacted via email in September 2021 and invited to voluntarily share their curricula vitae (CVs) for analysis. A total of 16 respondents provided their CVs, representing a 55% response rate. This was supplemented by locating five more CVs publicly available online. The final sample of LIS faculty was 21, and the bibliometrics analysis was based on a total of 716 publications published from 2011 to 2021 and reported on the CVs from this group of scholars. This analysis resulted in the identification of several patterns. Journal articles were the most common publication type, followed by conference proceedings. Joint authorship patterns were more common than solo authors, highlighting the collaborative nature of research. While faculty published in a range of LIS and interdisciplinary journals, highly cited papers appeared in health specialty journals. This study represents the first step in examining the research output for this under-explored community of LIS scholars. These findings may be of interest to promotion and tenure committees, newer tenure-track faculty, and doctoral students exploring academic careers in this specialized area. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The health literacy movement has been socially constructed over time. Unlike the consumer health information movement, which developed with broad public support, the health literacy movement has been fashioned primarily from the top down, initiated by policy makers and imposed on targeted populations. Interest in the health literacy movement has waxed and waned, often dependent on political agendas. In an era of increasing health care costs, it is not surprising that health literacy is once again at the forefront, given that economists and policy makers currently estimate the cost of limited health literacy in the United States to be between $1.6 to $3.6 trillion annually. Health literacy has been recognized as an issue key to the success of health care reform and to the continued advancement of the nation's status as an international leader where health and well-being are concerned. Yet, the health literacy movement has met with limited success. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The consumer health information (CHI) movement is the result of various twentieth-century ideologies and is an outgrowth of the broader consumer movement. From a sociocultural and political perspective, the consumer, civil rights, and women's movements and related societal shifts helped pave the way for the consumer health movement, which laid the foundation for the CHI movement. All are examples of freedom of choice expressed through action and mirror a growing societal determination to exert control over important areas of one's life. The provision of consumer health information is a necessary support mechanism for that portion of health care focused on investing in risk reduction and shared decision making. As changes in the U.S. health-care system occur over time, access to CHI is likely to remain prominent and increasingly important to the ordinary person. Examining key components of the movement's origins helps elucidate both present and future trends. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

No abstract available for this article. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Focuses on the effect of organization, storage, retrieval and dissemination on the content and structure of education for information services providers in the 21st century. Need to strengthen the admission standards among library schools and information studies; Restructuring of the curriculum; Re-evaluation of the content of course offering needs.

Objective: The study characterized three groups with different levels of familiarity with personal health information management (PHIM) in terms of their demographics, health knowledge, technological competency, and information sources and barriers. In addition, the authors examined differences among PHIM groups in subjective self-ratings and objective test scores for health literacy. Methods: A total of 202 survey participants were recruited using Amazon's Mechanical Turk (mTurk) service, a crowdsourcing Internet service. Using K-means clustering, three groups with differing levels of familiarity with PHIM were formed: Advanced, Intermediate, and Basic. Results: The Advanced group was the youngest, and the Basic group contained the highest proportion of males, whereas the Intermediate group was the oldest and contained the fewest males. The Advanced group was significantly more likely to engage in provider- or hospital-initiated PHIM activities such as emailing with providers, viewing test results online, and receiving summaries of hospital visits via email or websites than the other groups. The Basic group had significantly lower information management skills and Internet use than the other groups. Advanced and Basic groups reported significant differences in several information barriers. While the Advanced group self-reported the highest general literacy, they scored lowest on an objective health literacy test. Conclusions: For effective personal health records management, it is critical to understand individual differences in PHIM using a comprehensive measure designed to assess personal health records--specific activities. Because they are trained to perform an array of information management activities, medical librarians or patient educators are well positioned to promote the effective use of personal health records by health consumers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: This study investigated responsibilities, skill sets, degrees, and certifications required of health care navigators in order to identify areas of potential overlap with health sciences librarianship. Method: The authors conducted a content analysis of health care navigator position announcements and developed and assigned forty-eight category terms to represent the sample's responsibilities and skill sets. Results: Coordination of patient care and a bachelor's degree were the most common responsibility and degree requirements, respectively. Results also suggest that managing and providing health information resources is an area of overlap between health care navigators and health sciences librarians, and that librarians are well suited to serve on navigation teams. Conclusion: Such overlap may provide an avenue for collaboration between navigators and health sciences librarians. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study analyzed the overlap between roles and activities that health care navigators perform and competencies identified by the Medical Library Association's (MLA's) educational policy statement. Roles and activities that health care navigators perform were gleaned from published literature. Once common roles and activities that health care navigators perform were identified, MLA competencies were mapped against those roles and activities to identify areas of overlap. The greatest extent of correspondence occurred in patient empowerment and support. Further research is warranted to determine the extent to which health sciences librarians might assume responsibility for roles and activities that health care navigators perform. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study undertook an exploratory analysis of the relationship between the body of scientific literature associated with HIV/ AIDS and the trajectory of the epidemic, measured by the rate of new cases diagnosed annually in the United States for the period covering 1981 to 2009. The body of scientific literature examined in this investigation was constituted from scientific research that developed alongside the epidemic and was extracted from MEDLINE, a bibliographic database of the United States. National Library of Medicine. Content analysis methods were employed for qualitative data reduction, and regression analysis was used to assess whether variation in the trajectory of the epidemic co-occurred with variation in the publication of specific genres of content within the scientific literature relating to HIV/ AIDS. The regression model confirmed a statistically significant association between the representative body of HIV/ AIDS scientific literature and the epidemic trajectory, and identified three research categories, namely, ameliorative drug treatments, other clinical protocols, and health education, as being most significantly associated with the epidemic trajectory. Implicit in the findings of this study are areas of scientific research that are of functional and practical interest to clinicians, policy makers, the lay public, and contributors to the body of scientific literature. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objectives: The purpose of the study was to assess the impact that funding from the National Network of Libraries of Medicine (NN/LM), Greater Midwest Region (GMR), has on member institutions’ ability to conduct outreach on behalf of NN/LM. Methods: The study employed both content analysis and survey methodologies. The final reports from select GMR-funded outreach projects (n520) were analyzed based on a set of evaluation criteria. Project principal investigators (n513) were then surveyed using the same evaluation criteria. Results: Results indicated that outreach projects supported by GMR funding improved access to biomedical information for professionals and the general public. Barriers to conducting outreach projects included time constraints or commitments, staffing, scheduling and absenteeism, inadequate space, and issues associated with technology (e.g., hardware and software, Internet connectivity and firewall issues, and creation and use of new technologies). Conclusions: The majority of project principal investigators indicated that their attempts to conduct outreach were successful. Moreover, most noted that outreach had a positive impact on professionals as well as the general public. In general, it seems that negative outcomes, as with most barriers to conducting outreach, can be mitigated by more thorough planning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Project St. Hope built on the strengths of an academic/ community partnership to promote a healthy lifestyle for individuals living with HIV/AIDS and to facilitate access to electronic HIV/ AIDS information resources. This outreach project utilized a mobile laptop computer lab to provide hands-on education/training at three HIV outpatient clinics. Education/training sessions were conducted by an HIV/AIDS educator and a health sciences librarian. Sessions were subject-specific and concluded with administration of a post-session evaluation. Interviews and a final focus group were also used to evaluate Project St. Hope. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of the F2F Connection project is to facilitate access to relevant electronic health information resources for families that have children with chronic illnesses and/or disabilities. The project is a collaborative effort involving the Houston Academy of Medicine-Texas Medical Center Library, Texas Woman's University, and Family to Family Network. Family to Family Network (F2FN) works with family, professionals, and friends of children with disabilities and/or chronic illnesses to create communities where all children belong and excel. F2FN provides information and referral services, educational programs, and direct support to this community. In addition to local programming in the greater Houston, Texas area, F2FN operates a statewide training program developed for people who are committed to helping families of children with special needs. The F2F Connection project builds on existing strengths of its partners. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of the Informing Neighborhood Health project is to facilitate access to electronic health information resources at select community faith-based clinics. The project partners Texas Woman's University, Houston Academy of Medicine-Texas Medical Center Library, and five community faith-based clinics located in Houston, Texas, that primarily serve the homeless and working poor. The clinics include San Jose Clinic, Good Neighbor Healthcare Center, Eastwood Health Clinic, the Children's Clinic at Northwest Assistance Ministries, and Bering Omega Community Services. The Informing Neighborhood Health project placed Internet-connected workstations at each participating clinic. The project also provided training for select clinic staff members that focused on a variety of electronic health information resources. A post-training evaluation was administered at the end of each training session. In addition, site visits and interviews were conducted at each participating clinic once project workstations were operational and staff members had attended training sessions. A final project focus group was conducted with administrators from each participating clinic. Clinic staff members have incorporated use of project workstations into existing workflow processes and are using electronic information resources to make better informed health care decisions for their clients. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: The purpose of the Camp For All Connection project is to facilitate access to electronic health information resources at the Camp For All facility. Setting/Participants/Resources: Camp For All is a barrier-free camp working in partnership with organizations to enrich the lives of children and adults with chronic illnesses and disabilities and their families by providing camping and retreat experiences. The camp facility is located on 206 acres in Burton, Texas. The project partners are Texas Woman's University, Houston Academy of Medicine-Texas Medical Center Library, and Camp For All. Brief Description: The Camp For All Connection project placed Internet-connected workstations at the camp's health center in the main lodge and provided training in the use of electronic health information resources. A train-the-trainer approach was used to provide training to Camp For All staff. Results/Outcome: Project workstations are being used by health care providers and camp staff for communication purposes and to make better informed health care decisions for Camp For All campers. Evaluation Method: A post-training evaluation was administered at the end of the train-the-trainer session. In addition, a series of site visits and interviews was conducted with camp staff members involved in the project. The site visits and interviews allowed for ongoing dialog between project staff and project participants. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article discusses various issues related to F2F Connection project. The project is a collaborative effort involving the School of Library and Information Studies at Texas Woman's University, Houston Academy of Medicine-Texas Medical Center Library, and Family to Family Network (F2FN). The overarching goal of the project is to facilitate access to relevant electronic health information resources for families who have children with special needs. The objective of the initial phase of the project is to conduct an assessment of the community health information needs of families who have children with chronic illnesses and/or disabilities as well as of their care providers. F2FN works with families, professionals, and friends of children with disabilities and/or chronic illnesses to create communities where all children belong and excel. This program represents a collaborative effort between families and educators who share a common vision that all children have value and must have successful educational opportunities to accomplish their dreams. The Connections curriculum has been widely adopted throughout the state of Texas.

The article discusses a demonstration project conducted by a multidisciplinary team of educators and technical information specialists to evaluate a variety of digital methods for delivering unique women's health programming to health professionals and students. The project combined the outreach expertise of the Texas Medical Center Women's Health Network (TMC WHN) and the University of Houston (UH) System Distance Education CampusNet with the technical resources of KUHT, Houston's Public Broadcasting Service affiliate, and the UH Office of Educational Technology and Outreach. The TMC WHN convened a panel of medical experts to discuss a topic in women's health. The program was digitally recorded before a live audience. Post-production editing of the digital recording generated four video clips representing alternative formats for digital delivery of health information. A series of focus groups was held to allow representatives of the target audience to evaluate the effectiveness of formatting employed in the four video segments. Lessons learned through this demonstration project will be applied to selecting and producing digital learning objects for the Texas Archive of Women's Health. There were several observations and findings from the demonstration. Health professionals prefer focused, content-dense learning objects. The physical arrangement for panel discussions common to live meetings for health professionals does not translate well to digital programming. On-screen outlines, combined with a speaker's image and voice, effectively communicate key data as well as context clues that demonstrate the speaker's expertise.

The Woman to Woman: Community Health Information Project facilitates information access at selected community-based women's health agencies in Houston, Texas. The community partners were selected based on objectives outlined in Healthy People 2010. A variety of institutions and disciplines contributed to the planning and implementation of the project. Internet-connected workstations were placed at each participating agency site for staff use. A comprehensive compendium of local health resources for women was developed and posted on a dedicated Website. In addition, training in accessing electronic health information resources was provided for staff at each participating site. Trainees provided evaluative data at the end of the training session as well as one month later so that project members could determine the need for additional training. Site visits and structured interviews were also conducted at each participating agency to monitor progress and further evaluate the program. A final focus group was conducted with representatives from each participating agency to assess the project's success. Evaluative findings indicate that academic and community-based organizations can collaborate effectively to increase women's access to electronic health information. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This project featured collaboration between a large public library system and an academic institution to address training needs related to the rise in the demand for quality consumer health information. A train the trainer program featuring hands-on training and Web-based support was designed and implemented. Public reference librarians received customized education and support to facilitate their efforts to train library users of consumer health information. The results of the collaborative effort included an increased awareness of cultural, linguistic, and literacy issues for effective provision of public library consumer health reference service along with a reaffirmation of the need for strategic community collaborations for health education. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Reports that the body of knowledge associated with HIV and AIDS represents complexity not present in any other disease. Basis of the social constructs within which the pathological exists concerning HIV and AIDS; Problems in the controlled vocabulary and classification structure used to organize the body of knowledge associated with HIV/AIDS; Conclusion.

Explores the political and economic impact of electronic information networks concepts like the National Information Infrastructure. Relevance of electronic information retrieval to nursing; Applicability of electronic information; Implications of network functions.

This study compared the results of data collected from a longitudinal query analysis of the MEDLINE database hosted on multiple platforms that include PubMed, EBSCOHost, Ovid, ProQuest, and Web of Science. The goal was to identify variations among the search results on the platforms after controlling for search query syntax. We devised twenty-nine cases of search queries comprised of five semantically equivalent queries per case to search against the five MEDLINE database platforms. We ran our queries monthly for a year and collected search result count data to observe changes. We found that search results varied considerably depending on MEDLINE platform. Reasons for variations were due to trends in scholarly publication such as publishing individual papers online first versus complete issues. Some other reasons were metadata differences in bibliographic records; differences in the levels of specificity of search fields provided by the platforms and large fluctuations in monthly search results based on the same query. Database integrity and currency issues were observed as each platform updated its MEDLINE data throughout the year. Specific biomedical bibliographic databases are used to inform clinical decision-making, create systematic reviews, and construct knowledge bases for clinical decision support systems. They serve as essential information retrieval and discovery tools to help identify and collect research data and are used in a broad range of fields and as the basis of multiple research designs. This study should help clinicians, researchers, librarians, informationists, and others understand how these platforms differ and inform future work in their standardization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: Hypothetically, content in MEDLINE records is consistent across multiple platforms. Though platforms have different interfaces and requirements for query syntax, results should be similar when the syntax is controlled for across the platforms. The authors investigated how search result counts varied when searching records among five MEDLINE platforms. Methods: We created 29 sets of search queries targeting various metadata fields and operators. Within search sets, we adapted 5 distinct, compatible queries to search 5 MEDLINE platforms (PubMed, ProQuest, EBSCOhost, Web of Science, and Ovid), totaling 145 final queries. The 5 queries were designed to be logically and semantically equivalent and were modified only to match platform syntax requirements. We analyzed the result counts and compared PubMed's MEDLINE result counts to result counts from the other platforms. We identified outliers by measuring the result count deviations using modified z-scores centered around PubMed's MEDLINE results. Results: Web of Science and ProQuest searches were the most likely to deviate from the equivalent PubMed searches. EBSCOhost and Ovid were less likely to deviate from PubMed searches. Ovid's results were the most consistent with PubMed's but appeared to apply an indexing algorithm that resulted in lower retrieval sets among equivalent searches in PubMed. Web of Science exhibited problems with exploding or not exploding Medical Subject Headings (MeSH) terms. Conclusion: Platform enhancements among interfaces affect record retrieval and challenge the expectation that MEDLINE platforms should, by default, be treated as MEDLINE. Substantial inconsistencies in search result counts, as demonstrated here, should raise concerns about the impact of platform-specific influences on search results. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]