The NN/LM SCR is pleased to announce the recipients of the Year 03 Express Outreach Award.  This award is designed to fund outreach projects aimed at improving access to and use of National Library of Medicine databases.

Institution: St. Edward Mercy Medical Center, Fort Smith AR
Project Title: The Good Samaritan Clinic: Patient Centered Medical Home for the Uninsured
Principal Investigator: Pat Morris

Institution: Bunkie General Hospital, Bunkie LA
Project Title: Reaching Out to Bunkie General Hospital Using Information from National Library of Medicine Electronic Health Resources
Project Submitted by: Dennis Pernotto, LSUHSC Shreveport Library

Institution: Homer Memorial Hospital, Homer LA
Project Title: Reaching Out to Homer Memorial Hospital Using Information from National Library of Medicine Electronic Health Resources
Project Submitted by: Dennis Pernotto, LSUHSC Shreveport Library

Institution: North Caddo Medical Center, Vivian LA
Project Title: Reaching Out to North Caddo Medical Center Using Information from National Library of Medicine Electronic Health Resources
Project Submitted by: Dennis Pernotto, LSUHSC Shreveport Library

Institution: Southeastern Louisiana Area Health Education Center (SEL-AHEC), Slidell LA
Project Title: SEL-AHEC 2009 - 10 Outreach
Principal Investigator: Helen Caruso

Institution: University of Oklahoma - Tulsa Library, Tulsa OK
Project Title: OU-Tulsa Health Information Kiosk
Principal Investigator: Lynn Yeager

Institution: Forest Lawn Missionary Baptist Church, Houston TX
Project Title: HEALTHWATCH: Medical Educational Databases for Informed Choices
Principal Investigator: Gloria Dennis

Institution: Houston Academy of Medicine - Texas Medical Center Library, Houston TX
Project Title: The Chinese Community Center - Consumer Health Collaborative
Principal Investigator: Adela Justice

Institution: University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio, Regional Academic Health Center Library, Harlingen TX
Project Title: 2009 4th Conference for Promotores de Salud Bi-national Health Week
Principal Investigator: Greysi Reyna

Congratulations to the Awardees!

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Office of Disease Prevention and Health Promotion, in collaboration with the Regional Health Administrators, is pleased to announce a request for proposals for the State Action:  Evaluating the Healthy People 2020 Disease Prevention and Health Promotion Agenda project.  Funded by the Office of Disease Prevention and Health Promotion, this project is being administered by John Snow, Incorporated (JSI).

This evaluation project will fund state, territorial, and tribal governments to conduct innovative and participatory strategic planning activities, with an emphasis on multi-sector collaboration, using the Healthy People 2020 framework and population health improvement concepts (i.e., Healthy People 2020 mission and overarching goals; social, physical, and environmental determinants of health; and health equity).  Up to 12 projects, taking place between July 1, 2009 and June 30, 2010, will be funded at a maximum award of $37,000 each.

Eligible applicants that can apply for this funding opportunity are listed below:

• State and territorial health departments (this includes the District of Columbia, the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, the Virgin Islands, the Commonwealth of the Northern Marianna Islands, American Samoa, Guam, the National Government of the Federated States of Micronesia, the Republic of the Marshall Islands, and the Republic of Palau).
• Federally recognized Indian tribes, tribal organizations, tribal epidemiology centers, and urban Indian organizations.

This evaluation program is intended to enhance existing or planned state, territorial, and tribal activities to develop a Healthy People plan based on the national Healthy People 2020 framework and objectives.  The project will evaluate ways these eligible entities apply the Healthy People 2020 framework to their planning activities.  Examples of possible activities include:

• Facilitated meetings for multi-sectoral decision makers to engender buy-in and support
• Technical assistance in identifying measures around social determinants of health
• Development of products and information media regarding Healthy People 2020 activities
• Web-based applications to support Healthy People 2020 plans

The application deadline is Monday, April 27, 2009.

For more details and to download the request for proposal forms please visit www.healthypeople.gov/stateaction.  For questions, please contact Ann Loeffler at JSI at 1.800.839.0934 or email her at state_action@jsi.com.

The NN/LM SCR is pleased to announce the two recipients of the Year 03 Partners in Public Health Information Outreach Award:

University of Oklahoma-Tulsa Schusterman Center Library
Principal Investigator: Stewart Brower
Project title: Building Dynamic Partnerships in Public Health: Using Wiki Technology to Connect the Tulsa Public Health Workforce with National Library of Medicine Resources
Brief description: The primary emphasis of this project is to educate local public health agencies in the use of Web 2.0 technology and to develop a full-featured wiki platform for their use.  The library will identify and partner with agencies and individuals contributing to the health and welfare  of Tulsa and assist them in developing wikis for the purposes of project management, user education and information delivery.  Librarians will construct subject-based webliographies for the wikis as well, including significant surface and deep links to National Library of Medicine Resources.

St. Edward Mercy Medical Center Library
Principal Investigator: Pat Morris
Project title: Communication and Education: Equipping the Community to Fight CA-MRSA
Brief description: This project will bring CA-MRSA information and general health information seeking skills to public health workers, healthcare professionals, school personnel and consumers in the Ft. Smith, AR area by providing teaching and training expertise using improved health information seeking skills.  During the education sessions, attendees will be shown internet searching techniques to find reliable and authoritative healthcare information using NLM electronic health information products including PubMed, MedlinePlus, Clinicaltrials.gov, ToxTown and PHPartners.org.

Congratulations to Stewart and Pat!

The National Library of Medicine resources PubMed and MedlinePlus can be used to find health literacy information.

To find health literacy information in PubMed:

• Go to PubMed at www.pubmed.gov
• On the left side of the page under PubMed Services click on Special Queries
• Scroll down and under Subjects click on Health Literacy
• Click on MEDLINE/PubMed health literacy search
• To narrow your search, use the Limits tab.  You can limit your search by date, language, etc.

To find health literacy information in MedlinePlus:

• Go to MedlinePlus at http://medlineplus.gov
• Click on Health Topics
• Under Find your topic by first letter click on the letter H
• Scroll down and click on Health Literacy

Another useful resource is BHIC (Bringing Health Information to the Community), an NLM-funded blog with a wealth of health literacy information.

Schools across the country now have free access to an innovative set of teaching tools designed to increase the understanding of science, health, and diabetes among American Indian and Alaska Native students from kindergarten through the 12th grade. The comprehensive new curriculum, called “Health is Life in Balance,” was launched on November 12, 2008 at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Indian in Washington, D.C.

The curriculum, a product of the Diabetes-based Science Education in Tribal Schools (DETS) program, integrates science and Native American traditions to educate students about science, diabetes and its risk factors, and the importance of nutrition and physical activity in maintaining health and balance in life. The project was developed in collaboration with eight tribal colleges and universities and several Native American organizations, with funding from the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the Indian Health Service (IHS), and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

The rate of diagnosed diabetes in American Indians and Alaska Natives is two to three times that of non-Hispanic whites. Nearly 17 percent of the total adult population served by the IHS has diagnosed diabetes. After adjusting for population age differences, diabetes rates vary from 6 percent among Alaska Native adults to 29 percent among American Indian adults in southern Arizona. Once seen only in adults, type 2 diabetes is increasingly being diagnosed in youth, especially in American Indian and other minority populations.

The curriculum units provide accurate, culturally tailored materials and lesson plans for use in more than 1,000 tribal schools on reservations and in public schools that have a sizable number of Native American students. “This curriculum can change perceptions and attitudes about diabetes and empower young people to adopt healthier lifestyles,” said Kelly Acton, M.D., M.P.H, director of the Division of Diabetes Treatment and Prevention of the IHS, which will oversee distribution to schools.

To order printed copies or CDs of the curriculum free of charge, see the IHS website http://www.ihs.gov/MedicalPrograms/Diabetes/.

Google.org’s Flu Trends (http://www.google.org/flutrends/) tracks when and where questions about flu symptoms are asked all over the country.  They have discovered that a large number of flu-related searches from a particular region may be estimating an outbreak of the flu in that region. In fact, last year Google Flu Trends estimated flu levels one to two weeks earlier than the CDC reported them.

The New York Times: “Google Uses Searches to Track Flu’s Spread”

Google.org: “How does this work?“

The Maternal and Child Health Bureau is awarding grants to address significant disparities in perinatal health indicators in communities within 62 miles of the U.S./Mexico border or in Alaska and Hawaii. Eligible organizations include: state, county, city, township, or special district governments; independent school districts; state controlled institutions of higher education; public housing/Indian housing authorities; federally-recognized Native American tribal governments; Native American tribal organizations other than federally recognized tribal governments; nonprofits with or without a 501 (C)(3) IRS status other than institutions of higher education; and private institutions of higher education.

Grant applicants must provide a scope of project services that will cover pregnancy and interconceptional phases for women and infants residing in the proposed project area. Services are to be given to both mother and infant for two years following delivery to promote longer interconceptional periods and prevent relapses of unhealthy risk behaviors.

Applicants for this funding opportunity are required to submit an electronic application through the Grants.gov website. The deadline for applications is December 5th, 2008. For more information, contact Beverly Wright at 301-443-5691.

A new version of the National Library of Medicine’s (NLM) Drug Information Portal was released in October. The portal now covers over 16,000 drugs.

http://druginfo.nlm.nih.gov

The update includes:

1. Direct searching of drug categories, which are derived from the Medical Subject Heading (MeSH®) Pharmacological Action field http://www.nlm.nih.gov/bsd/disted/mesh/paterms.html

2. Name and category suggestions, to eliminate common spelling errors

3. Phrase parser that assists users in finding drug names within phrases

4. The addition of the MeSH notes, when available, to spell checker results to make selection of a possible answer easier

5. Searches retrieving multiple results now sorted by frequency of citation in PubMed®, from highest to lowest. This tends to show the most commonly used drugs first.

The Drug Information Portal is a free web resource from the NLM that provides an informative, user friendly entry-way to current drug information for over 16,000 drugs. Links to sources span the breadth of NLM, the National Institutes of Health, and other government agencies. Current information regarding consumer health, clinical trials, AIDS–related drug information, MeSH pharmacological actions, PubMed biomedical literature, and physical properties and structure is easily retrieved by searching on a drug name. A varied selection of focused topics in medicine and drug–related information is also available from displayed subject headings.

The PubMed Special Queries link provides access to a directory of topic-specific PubMed queries, including the following queries related to public health:

Health Literacy - http://www.nlm.nih.gov/services/health_literacy.html

Health Disparities - http://www.nlm.nih.gov/services/health_disparities.html

Health Services Research - http://www.nlm.nih.gov/nichsr/hedges/search.html

Healthy People 2010 - http://phpartners.org/hp/

The National Information Center on Health Services Research and Health Care Technology (NICHSR) at the National Library of Medicine was created to improve the collection, storage, analysis, retrieval, and dissemination of health services research. Designed for health practitioners, health policy makers, payers and information professionals, the NICHSR website (http://www.nlm.nih.gov/nichsr) provides access to a variety of databases and retrieval services including:

Pilot Health Services Research Filters Project

Researchers, clinicians, health policy analysts and planners can use these specialized PubMed Health Services Research (HSR) searches to find information on healthcare quality and costs.

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