Year Three - May 2008 to April 2009

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Year Two - May 2007 to April 2008

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Recipient: Health Sciences Libraries, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI
Project Director: Jane Blumenthal
Project Title: Michigan Health Literacy Awareness Training Program
Amount: $35,000
Start/End Date: February 2008 to July 2009
Phone: 734-936-1403

Description: The Michigan Health Literacy Awareness Training Program (MHLATP) is a collaborative project between the University of Michigan Health Sciences Libraries and Washtenaw Literacy. The goal of this project is to raise awareness among health professionals of the issue of low literacy and poor health literacy among their patients, and to provide communication techniques and resources to improve patient care. Building on an established curriculum developed by Washtenaw Literacy; (WL) on raising awareness of low literacy, the collaborators will expand the current curriculum to address poor health literacy as well as low literacy. Classes will be offered to health providers in a variety of settings, particularly in neighborhood-based health clinics. Additional collaboration between the partners and the health clinic providers will enable MHLATP to develop a comprehensive health awareness toolkit. The final outcome will include the development of a project website to disseminate the toolkit and provide a networking mechanism for continuation of activities.

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Recipient: Heartland Health Outreach, Chicago, IL, and University of Illinois at Chicago, Library of the Health Sciences Library, Chicago, IL
Project Director: Celine Woznica
Project Title: New Americans Health Information Access Project
Amount: $35,000
Start/End Date: April 2008 to July 2009
Phone: 773-751-4166

Description: The purpose of the New Americans Health Information Access Project is to build upon the success of an earlier NN/LM GMR-funded project Multi-Lingual Health Information Access for Immigrants and Refugees) that provided access to quality health information to non-English speaking refugee and immigrant populations in the Chicago area. Eight dedicated health education computers were purchased and installed in seven mutual aid associations and one refugee resettlement agency Health promoters working for those agencies and part of an ongoing health promoter formation program coordinated by Heartland Health Outreach received training on computer skills and health information website evaluation techniques. As a result of this project, literally thousands of health information documents were located on the Internet in the more than fifteen languages spoken collectively by the collaborating agencies. With the help of a student intern, the documents were organized by website, language, name, and hyperlink. The unanticipated level of success of this project gave rise to a call to share these resources with other agencies in a manner that can be easily accessed and updated. With the technical support of the partnering library institution and the assistance of the collaborating ethnic community-based organizations, Heartland Health Outreach proposes to continue researching and evaluating multi-lingual health information that can be then accessed through a webpage portal designed, managed, and hosted by the University of Illinois at Chicago.

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Recipient: Medical College of Wisconsin Libraries, Medical College of Wisconsin, Milwaukee, WI
Project Director: Sue Coenen
Project Title: Empowering Patients with Accurate Health Information at Holy Redeemer Church and Clinic
Amount: $20,000
Start/End Date: April 2008 to July 2009
Phone: 414-456-8323

Description: To help improve access to accurate health information to community members and to health care providers who serve them in a free health clinic in a Medically Underserved Area of Milwaukee, the Medical College of Wisconsin Libraries (MCWL) plans to work with the nurse who coordinates the free clinic and serves as the parish nurse at Holy Redeemer Church of God in Christ as she provides health information and develops a health education component at the clinic. By providing training, equipment, MCWL resources, and ongoing support to this nurse and clinic volunteers, the parishioners and community members served by the parish nurse and clinic will receive accurate health information. The MCWL Outreach Librarian will coordinate this project and provide training to the nurse and volunteers in using MedlinePlus, PubMed, and other quality online resources and offer classes to parishioners and community members on MedlinePlus. In addition, the clinic will receive two computers and multiple printers and printing supplies, and the nurse will receive a laptop, printer, and LCD projector to help facilitate the dissemination of information to the parishioners and clinic patients. A budget will be available for the parish nurse to purchase consumer health books for her church, and materials from MCWL collection will be available free of charge as will interlibrary loan requests that can be obtained from other Reciprocal Libraries in the GMR network. The MCWL Outreach Librarian will create two online tutorials, one for the clinic patients and one for the health care volunteers, in how to find accurate, online health information and will help facilitate retrieval of information from MedlinePlus and other sources by organizing patient information and handouts into folders by health topic saved to the computer desktops. By improving access to reliable health information to the parish members of Holy Redeemer and those in the surrounding community served by the parish nurse and clinic, the goals of this project are consistent with the GMR Health Disparities Subcontract.

Year One - May 2006 to April 2007

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Recipient: Medical College of Wisconsin Libraries, Medical College of Wisconsin, Milwaukee, WI
Project Director: Mary Blackwelder
Project Title: Making Connections: Partnering with Parish Nurses to Improve Access to Health Information in Milwaukee's Central City
Amount: $12,000
Start/End Date: February 2007 to January 2008
Phone: 414-456-8323

Description: Medical College of Wisconsin (MCW) Libraries will train parish nurses in using MedlinePlus® and PubMed® to help them provide reliable, authoritative, and relevant health information to members of their parish communities. Laptop computers, printers, and computer maintenance agreements will be provided to the neediest of parishes to facilitate the parish nurses' dissemination of information to their parish communities. Free reference service for the public will be promoted. Materials from MCW Libraries' collection will be available for the parish nurses to use free of charge, as will interlibrary loan requests that can be obtained from other Reciprocal Libraries in the GMR network. Lastly, onsite training sessions on using MedlinePlus will be offered to parishes with adequate meeting facilities.

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Recipient: Heartland Health Outreach, Chicago, IL, and Loyola University Chicago Health Sciences Library, Loyola University Medical Center, Maywood, IL
Project Director: Celine Woznica
Project Title: Multi-lingual Health Information Access for Immigrants and Refugees
Amount: $12,000
Start/End Date: February 2007 to January 2008
Phone: 773-751-4166

Description: The purpose of the Multi-lingual Health Information Access for Immigrants and Refugees project is to enhance access to health information on the Internet for immigrant and refugee populations in the greater Chicago area. Through collaboration with the Loyola University Chicago Health Sciences Library and representative community-based mutual aid associations, Heartland Health Outreach (HHO) plans to provide the technical support and equipment necessary for health promoters working in eight distinct immigrant communities to research and download culturally and linguistically appropriate health information. This health information, in audio, print, and multi-media format, will be stored on dedicated computers purchased for each agency for its ethnic community's use. In addition, health information will be downloaded onto portable formats for individual distribution and/or viewing in community settings.

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Recipient: Hmong Health Education Network, Wausau Area Hmong Mutual Association (WAHMA), Wausau, WI
Project Director: Margaret Allen
Project Title: Networking for Hmong and Immigrant Health
Amount: $40,000
Start/End Date: November 2006 to April 2008
Phone: 715-842-8390

Description: The goal of this project is to continue develop the Hmong Health Education Network as a model resource for refugees and immigrants and their health providers in the Midwest and beyond. This includes:

• enhancing the Hmonghealth.org website as a bilingual prototype for culture-specific websites;
• promotion of access to culturally and linguistically appropriate health information online and at professional conferences; and
• developing educational resources for librarians to work with health educators and bilingual staff to promote health literacy and access to health information for English language learners.