Year Three - May 2008 to April 2009

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Recipient: University of Illinois at Chicago, Library of the Health Sciences (Peoria), Peoria, IL
Project Director: Jo Dorsch
Title: Living Health: Promoting Wellness, Safety, and Preventative Health Care in the Heart of Illinois
Amount: $4,900
Start/End Date: August 2008 to July 2009
Phone: 309-671-8489

Healthy life styles and health screenings are known to prevent disease and to improve overall wellness, yet health care providers often do not have time to fully educate their patients and provide information resources about prevention and healthy living choices. A series of monthly consumer health seminars will serve to fill this information gap by educating the public on topics related to prevention, safety, and wellness. Faculty, residents and students of the College of Medicine, College of Nursing, School of Public Health, and the Library of the Health Sciences will collaborate to develop programs that will raise health literacy of high-risk populations, address prevention and control of chronic diseases, and promote healthy life style choices. At each seminar participants will receive bookmarks listing sources of trusted information such as MedlinePlus and other National Library of Medicine sites, along with other trusted sites. Librarians will be present for individual information consults in conjunction with each seminar. Community partners will be invited to provide screenings and displays about their services. To increase access to the series, podcasts of each program will be made available on a project web site.

Year Two - May 2007 to April 2008

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Recipient: University of Michigan Health Sciences Library, Ann Arbor, MI
Project Director: Jane Blumenthal
Title: Only Connect...to the Community!
Amount: $3,355
Start/End Date: March 2008 to June 2008
Phone: 734-936-1403

The purpose of this project is to provide outreach from the Medical Library Association (MLA) to the Chicago community with 2 specific one-day programs in May 2008: Each One Teach One - MLA members will meet with public librarians at the Wrightwood-Ashburn branch public library to share experiences and expertise in working with and providing health information to the public. MLA members will sponsor and staff a Health Fair Information Table at the Rush University free health fair to offer consumer health information available from the National Library of Medicine. The overall goal of the project is to contribute to improved access accurate, timely, and reliable consumer health information.

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Recipient: Advocate Health and Hospitals Corporation, Children's Health Resource Center, Park Ridge, IL
Project Director: Kathryn Smart
Title: Needs Assessment of Adolescent Health Information Needs and Related Internet Behaviors Using Focus Groups in a Northwest Chicago Suburb
Amount: $4,900
Start/End Date: October 2007 to September 2008
Phone: 847-723-9484

This pilot project will conduct a needs assessment of adolescent health information needs and related Internet behaviors using focus groups in three northwest suburban communities of Chicago. The purpose of the project is to understand these behaviors in order to determine a teen-friendly model for educating high school students on how to access accurate health information and find available local health resources. The Advocate Lutheran General (LGH) Children's Health Resource Center will conduct six to eight focus groups in order to collect data on the health information needs and related Internet behaviors of 50-90 teens at six to eight partner organizational sites, including schools and adolescent focused community agencies. During the focus groups, the project director will administer a MedlinePlus training to engage the teens in the focus group process. Findings of the focus groups will be discussed by the partner agencies in order to determine a working model for service delivery.

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: Sue Coenen
Title: LCD Projectors for Parish Nurses Serving Milwaukee's Central City
Amount: $4,900
Start/End Date: June 2007 to May 2008
Phone: 414-456-8427

This Outreach Express project will be carried out in conjunction with the Health Disparities Subcontract, "Making Connections: Partnering with Parish Nurses to Improve Access to Health Information in Milwaukee's Central City," which is currently being facilitated by the Medical College of Wisconsin (MCW) Libraries in partnership with parish nurses serving Milwaukee's Central City. The nurses attended a training session at the MCW Libraries recently to learn how to find reliable health information in MedlinePlus®. During discussions with them, we learned that LCD projectors would help facilitate the parish nurses' educational efforts. The nurses could prepare PowerPoint presentations with illustrations and information from MedlinePlus on many health topics. They could also use MedlinePlus as a teaching tool, especially the Interactive Tutorials, Encyclopedia, and Health Topics sections. This Outreach Express Award will compliment the subcontract project by helping the nurses utilize the laptops and PowerPoint software more fully.

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Recipient: Wegner Health Science Information Center
Project Director: Molly Youngkin
Title: Promoting NLM and Wegner Center Resources to Healthcare and Information Professionals in South Dakota
Amount: $4,900
Start/End Date: June 2007 to May 2008
Phone: 605-357-1400

The Wegner Center continues to search for opportunities to educate health professionals and the public on ways to find quality health information. Professional conferences are appropriate and effective avenues for sharing information about NLM and Wegner Center resources and services. This proposal requests funds to cover exhibitor fees for important South Dakota professional conferences. Also, to meet the growing demands for the Wegner Center to exhibit, it is imperative to purchase a tabletop backdrop to complement the one owned by the Wegner Center. Another exhibit more adequately supports the library when two exhibiting opportunities occur simultaneously. Exhibit fees and materials are expensive, but support from the NN/LM-GMR enables the Wegner Center to leverage in-house funds and respond more effectively and efficiently to outreach opportunities. Conference attendees will be asked to complete a questionnaire to asses their knowledge of quality patient education and consumer health resources (for instance, MedlinePlus®). Respondents will form a pool which the Wegner Center can use to create focus groups to identify more in-depth information needs. Work with these focus groups will enhance the Wegner Center's ability to develop and deliver effective outreach programs in South Dakota.