Sorry for cross posting!

Been working with health literacy involving specific cultures,
communities or patients with special disease (cancer, mental illness,
HIV/AIDS)?  Consider submitting an abstract of your research for the
Cancer Librarians section for MLA 2009.  Remember the abstract only
includes suggestion to try to show the wide range of programs that might
be discussed.  

Other program themes can be found at
http://www.mlanet.org/am/am2009/sect_prog/themes.html.    Submission
details and the link to the submission site can be found at
http://www.mlanet.org/am/am2009/call.html.  Please note the submission
date Monday, October 6, 2008 is much earlier than normal.  So plan NOW!

Fusing Culture and Community to Improve Health Literacy 

Cancer Librarians Section; Complementary and Alternative Medicine SIG;
Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgendered Health Science Librarians SIG;
Mental Health SIG; Nursing and Allied Health Resources Section

Contributed papers and invited speakers 

Julia Esparza jespar @ lsuhsc.edu (spaces added to prevent spamming)

Health care professionals and institutions are being challenged with the
goal of improving health communication by providing information in the
appropriate cultural or community context, as well as in the context of
special diseases (i.e., people with cancer, mental illness, HIV/AIDS,
etc.). As a result, health communication is being developed for specific
cultural, community, and illness groups. This session will focus on the
role librarians and information professionals play in contributing to
this developing area of literacy. Topics may include, but are not
limited to, educational support for patients with cancer and support for
survivors and survivorship issues; support for nurses and allied health
professionals providing patient education on the front line;
demystification of acronyms used to talk about people with mental
disorders (BD, PTSD, OCD, ADHD, etc.) and defusing of the stereotypes
that come with them; ways health professionals can communicate with the
lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgendered community; and service for the
health care needs of those with limited English literacy and different
cultural and religious healing practices. 

Julie

Julie Esparza
Clinical Medical Librarian
LSU Health Sciences Center - Shreveport, LA

LSUHSC-S Medical Library Evidence Alert
http://lsuhsc-sevidencealert.blogspot.com 
Health Literacy Alerts
http://healthliteracyalerts.blogspot.com 

318-675-4179
318-675-5442 Fax