The National Library of Medicine (NLM) released a new search engine for MedlinePlus Go Local, http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/golocal/, using the Vivisimo search software. By popular demand, search results now include health information from MedlinePlus, as well as the health services in MedlinePlus Go Local.

A look through the MedlinePlus Go Local search logs shows that many users are looking for health information as well as services. Examples include drug names such as Provigil and Cialis, disorders such as GERD and TMJ, and services such as dentists that take Medicaid and where to get a flu shot. In addition to adding health information from MedlinePlus, the new search results also feature improved relevance rankings, links to maps and directions, bold-face search words in context, and an integrated spell checker that suggests alternative search terms and spelling corrections.

Funding is available from the Harry and Jeanette Weinberg Foundation for community partners to build programs to help families and caregivers of older adults.

Most frail older adults are cared for by family, friends and other nonprofessionals. With this funding initiative, the Harry and Jeanette Weinberg Foundation will help community partnerships develop innovative ways to support these devoted caregivers.

AVAILABLE GRANTS

Up to $9 million over three years through the Family and Informal Caregiver Support Program will support from 12 to 20 community-based Projects with grants ranging from $100,000 to $300,000 per year (for a total of $300,000 to $900,000 for each grant recipient from March 2009 through February 2012).

ELIGIBLE APPLICANTS

The Foundation encourages non-profit 501(c)(3) organizations, including aging and human service agencies, faith-based and other community-based organizations, tribal organizations, and units of local government to participate.

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION

http://www.hjweinbergfoundation.org/subPages/grantmaking/rfp.htm
CaregivingRFP@theweinbergfoundation.org

The course described below, originally announced on Blogadillo March 18, 2008, has been approved by the Medical Library Association for the Consumer Health Information Specialization (CHIS) program, Level II. For more information on the CHIS program, please go to http://mlanet.org/education/chc/

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The Health Resources and Services Administration’s (HRSA) free online course: “Unified Health Communication 101: Addressing Health Literacy, Cultural Competency, and Limited English Proficiency” has now been approved for 5 Medical Library Association (MLA) Continuing Education Contact Hours.

This free online course will help to improve your communication skills with patients and increase your awareness of health literacy and cultural compentency. Additional information about the course can be found at:

http://www.hrsa.gov/healthliteracy/training.htm

The Lance Armstrong Foundation (LAF) recently announced that they are collaborating with the American Library Association (ALA) to provide libraries across the country with reference materials to better serve those seeking health-related information, specifically cancer. Recently, the LAF began shipping LIVESTRONG Survivorship Notebooks to more than 14,200 libraries across the United States.

The LAF created the LIVESTRONG Survivorship Notebook to give cancer information access to everyone, especially low-income or uninsured citizens who do not have access to a computer or are denied follow-up care after completing cancer treatment. (more…)

Tox Town: Nuevo recurso en español de la Biblioteca Nacional de Medicina

Tox Town is now available in both English, http://toxtown.nlm.nih.gov and en español, http://toxtown.nlm.nih.gov/espanol. Visitors can learn in English or in Spanish about environmental health concerns and over 30 toxic chemicals in these imaginary neighborhoods: a City, Farm, Town, US-Mexico Border, and Port.

In either language, Tox Town uses neighborhood scenes along with color, graphics, sounds, and animation to add interest to learning about connections between chemicals, the environment, and the public’s health. Tox Town’s target audience is high school, college and graduate students, educators, and the interested public.

Tox Town en español identifies Spanish-language information in a subject area – environmental health and toxicology – that currently has few Web resources. To supplement the limited Web resources in Spanish, nearly 100 pages of background information describing environmental health concerns were translated and reviewed by a team of bilingual health information specialists.

Tox Town is ideal for supplementing classes in environmental science, earth science, forensics, and health. Also, students learning to read either English or Spanish may use Tox Town to improve language skills as they toggle back and forth between the Spanish and English text.

Tox Town joins three other Spanish-language Web resources from the National Library of Medicine. ToxMystery, for grades 2–6, features a bilingual talking cat that teaches about possible chemical hazards around the home, http://toxmystery.nlm.nih.gov. MedlinePlus (en español at http://medlineplus.gov/spanish) directs users to hundreds of Spanish-language resources on health including drug information, news stories and interactive tutorials that read aloud in Spanish or in English. The AIDSinfo Web site, home for treatment guidelines, drug information and clinical trials related to HIV/AIDS, also has a Spanish version, infoSIDA, available at http://aidsinfo.nih.gov/infoSIDA.

Tox Town® is a project of the Specialized Information Services Division of the National Library of Medicine, National Institutes of Health. Promotional materials and Tox Town images for Web sites and publications are listed at http://toxtown.nlm.nih.gov/clipart.html. Please send your comments or questions on Tox Town to tehip@teh.nlm.nih.gov.

The Health Resources and Services Administration’s (HRSA) free online course: “Unified Health Communication 101: Addressing Health Literacy, Cultural Competency, and Limited English Proficiency” has now been approved for 5 Medical Library Association (MLA) Continuing Education Contact Hours.

This free online course will help to improve your communication skills with patients and increase your awareness of health literacy and cultural compentency. Additional information about the course can be found at:

http://www.hrsa.gov/healthliteracy/training.htm

Central Texas counties can now access a directory to local health resources through Heart of Texas Go Local!

Heart of Texas Go Local connects health services in the heart of Texas (a twenty-two county region in central Texas including Austin, Bryan/College Station, Waco and Temple/Killeen) to health topics on MedlinePlus, the National Library of Medicine’s health information portal. Texas A&M University Medical Sciences Library is responsible for the project, under the leadership of Becky McKay. Working with Becky to make the site happen have been Cindy Sharp, Gauri Govil, Elizabeth Kaster and Mellisa Tomlin. Thanks are also due to library director Esther Carrigan, and Chris Foster.

Heart of Texas Go Local is a joint project between the Texas A&M University Medical Sciences Library and the National Library of Medicine, part of the National Institutes of Health.

Check out http://www.medlineplus.gov/hot

Congratulations to Texas A&M University Medical Sciences Library!

The American Library Association (ALA) is pleased to announce that it is working with WGBH Boston on the upcoming national outreach campaign for the film “The Truth About Cancer,” which will air on PBS at 9 p.m. on April 16 (check local listings). The 90-minute documentary film, followed by a 30-minute expert panel hosted by news journalist and cancer survivor Linda Ellerbee, will be the launching pad for events and projects across the country focused on creating community conversations around cancer survivorship.

ALA and WGBH encourage libraries to reach out to their local PBS stations to collaborate with them on events surrounding this film. To assist in these outreach efforts, WGBH will offer extensive online resources, including downloadable handouts, which will be available at http://www.pbs.org/takeonestep starting in March 2008. In addition, a limited number of free Outreach Toolkits, including two event posters and a DVD Screener that will include 30 minutes of the film and the full expert panel, is available to libraries that request them. WGBH asks that libraries not hold public screenings using the DVD screener until one week prior to the premiere broadcast.

To order the Outreach Toolkit, please go to: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/takeonestep/request.html. Materials are limited and are available on a first-come, first-serve basis.

For more information, view the ALA Press Release at: http://www.ala.org/ala/pressreleases2008/february2008/outreach08.htm.

Reuters Health, February 14, 2008: Many of the government-supplied trailers housing thousands of people displaced by Hurricane Katrina contain potentially dangerous levels of the chemical formaldehyde, U.S. federal health officials said on Thursday.

“In some of these situations, the formaldehyde levels are high enough where there could be a health hazard to the people who are living there,” U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Dr. Julie Gerberding said.

Gerberding told reporters in New Orleans, which was devastated by the 2005 storm, and by telephone link that the CDC is urging the U.S. Federal Emergency Management Agency to get people out of the trailers “as quickly as possible and certainly before the warm summer months arrive.”

For more information: http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/news/fullstory_61146.html

The National Library of Medicine has released the NLM Drug Information Portal http://druginfo.nlm.nih.gov. This resource provides the public, healthcare professionals, and researchers with a gateway to current and accurate drug information from the National Library of Medicine and to other key government agencies.

The Drug Information Portal offers a varied selection of resources and focused topics in medicine and drug-related information, with links to individual resources with drug information and summaries tailored to various audiences. General drug categories from MeSH are also included in the Drug Portal records.

More than 15,000 drugs are available for searching. The search interface requires only a drug name; a spellchecker is provided. Information buttons and balloon pop-ups guide the user by providing helpful hints or a description of the resource and links to the source website.

Search results include links to related drug information in MedlinePlus®, AIDSinfo®, Medline/PubMed®, LactMed, HSDB®, Dietary Supplements Labels Database, TOXLINE®, DailyMed®, ClinicalTrials.gov, PubChem, NIAID Anti-HIV/OI Database, ChemIDplus®, Drugs@FDA, DEA, and USA.gov.