Main description:

Meeting Health Information Needs Outside of Healthcare addresses the challenges and ethical dilemmas concerning the delivery of health information to the general public in a variety of non-clinical settings, both in-person and via information technology, in settings from public and academic libraries to online communities and traditional and social media channels.

Professionals working in a range of fields, including librarianship, computer science and health information technology, journalism, and health communication can be involved in providing consumer health information, or health information targeting laypeople. This volume clearly examines the properties of health information that make it particularly challenging information to provide in diverse settings.

Contents:

Series Editor
About the authors
Editors' foreword
Acknowledgments
Overview

1. Designing health information programs to promote the health and well-being of vulnerable populations: the benefits of evidence-based strategic health communication

1.1. Introduction
1.2. Barriers
1.3. Lessons learned: improving health communication for vulnerable populations
1.4. Strategies to develop strategic communication
1.5. Evaluating health communication
1.6. Practice implications

2. Health literacy research's growth, challenges, and frontiers

2.1. Introduction
2.2. Four milestones in health literacy research
2.3. Health literacy's evolving definition and conceptual underpinnings
2.4. The range and vitality of health literacy research
2.5. Health literacy research's current needs and frontiers
2.6. Conclusions

Libraries

3. Medical information for the consumer before the World Wide Web

3.1. Introduction: "Closed to the Public"
3.2. Background: the beginnings of consumer health information
3.3. Libraries
3.4. Librarian
3.5. The patron
3.6. Content
3.7. Conclusions

4. Ethical health information: Do it well! Do it right! Do no harm!

4.1. Introduction
4.2. Responsibility for the best possible information service
4.3. The right to privacy and responsibility for confidentiality
4.4. Providing fair and equitable access
4.5. Intellectual property rights and access to information
4.6. Advocacy for information access
4.7. Providing information versus giving advice
4.8. Conflicting values, dilemmas, and tough decisions
4.9. Keep learning

5. Health information resource provision in the public library setting

5.1. Background
5.2. Challenges
5.3. Case study: embedded consumer health librarians in Delaware
5.4. Conclusions

6. Who needs a health librarian? Ethical reference transactions in the consumer health library

6.1. Introduction
6.2. The reference transaction: asking the right questions, avoiding the wrong answers
6.3. Looking for the answers: symptom-checkers and self-diagnosing
6.4. What did the doctor say? Health literacy and deciphering a whole new language
6.5. When the answers have questions: experimental treatments and integrative medicine
6.6. Conclusions

7. Consumer health information: the community college conundrum

7.1. The community college setting
7.2. Health information needs at the community college
7.3. Issues in health information provision
7.4. Health literacy in the community college setting
7.5. The future for community colleges and health information
7.6. Conclusions
Appendix A: Community and Junior College Libraries Section (CJCLS) of the Association of College and Research Libraries

Contexts

8. Health information delivery outside the clinic in a developing nation: The Qatar Cancer Society in the State of Qatar

8.1. Introduction and background
8.2. Qatar
8.3. Methods
8.4. Sources of consumer health information in the GCC
8.5. Barriers to health care in Qatar
8.6. The Qatar Cancer Society
8.7. Cancer information delivery outside the clinical setting
8.8. Conclusions
Appendix 1: Questionnaire

9. Health information and older adults

9.1. Introduction
9.2. Background
9.3. Settings: where do older adults go for information?
9.4. Health information format considerations
9.5. Format summary
9.6. Health information comprehension among older adults: barriers and solutions
9.7. Comprehension summary

10. Re-envisioning the health information-seeking conversation: insights from a community center

10.1. Introduction
10.2. Understanding information behaviors
10.3. Health information seeking in a local context
10.4. Conclusions

11. For the mutual benefit: health information provision in the science classroom

11.1. Background
11.2. The science classroom as a setting for health literacy
11.3. Challenges and opportunities for bringing health education into the science classroom
11.4. Conclusions and implications

12. "You will be glad you hung onto this quit": sharing information and giving support when stopping smoking online

12.1. Introduction
12.2. Interpersonal aspects of advice-giving and showing support online
12.3. Methodology
12.4. Results and discussion
12.5. Conclusions

13. Health information in bits and bytes: considerations and challenges of digital health communication

13.1. Introduction
13.2. The health programs
13.3. The digital divide
13.4. Don't make me think
13.5. Humanizing technology
13.6. Know your audience
13.7. Data dilemmas
13.8. Conclusions

14. Does specialization matter? How journalistic expertise explains differences in health-care coverage

14.1. Introduction
14.2. Why specialization should matter
14.3. Methodology
14.4. Results
14.5. Discussion
14.6. Conclusions

Afterword
Index