Objective: The purpose of this project is to provide better consumer health information and services to a patient population of a hospital-based nursing home. Methods: A hospital partnered with an academic medical library and obtained National Network of Libraries of Medicine funding. Wii devices with television monitors were purchased to improve physical activity in the nursing home. All nurses were trained to use MedlinePlus, and computers were made available for their use to search MedlinePlus in the nursing home. MedlinePlus materials were added to the consumer health library in the hospital, and DVD players were purchased to use for watching consumer health videos. Results: The capacity of the nursing home and hospital to deliver consumer health information to patients and their families has been improved. Conclusions: A small project like this is a great way to introduce a health care system to the services and products of the National Library of Medicine and empower the staff to better provide consumer health information.

Objective: Many people in the Appalachian region turn to their churches in times of crisis. A diagnosis of cancer is seen as a personal and family crisis. The purpose of this study is to partner with a regional comprehensive cancer control coalition and an interdenominational group of religious professionals to identify, develop, and test contents for a set of classes to better prepare and educate religious leaders who regularly are required to assist their church members with a diagnosis of cancer. Methods: This project will be done in four steps.1. identify elements of a cancer curriculum for preachers2. develop learning modules and install lessons on computer tablets3. pilot use of tablets with two clusters of two community preachers4. evaluate changes in knowledge and sense of communication with medical professionalsData will be analyzed using focus groups both before and after the use of the tablets with the community preachers. Results: Two cohorts of eight pastors were selected from two remote rural regions. Four modules were located on iPad devices that covered various aspects of consumer health information including MedlinePlus, communication issues, and development of health information outreach as a component of ministry. Data collection and analysis is ongoing. Conclusions: Using clergy and other nontraditional delivery venues for consumer health information is well worth pursuing.

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This thesis explores the statement that the health information needs and behaviour of the general public, namely health information consumers are comparable with those of academics, health and social care professionals. The research has been conducted in the broad Interpretist tradition, seeking to understand rather than merely explain human behaviour. A model depicting the health information and knowledge environment has been developed to show the how the infonnation behaviour of the various populations in the research are interpreted and where they are placed. The provision, access and use of health information by consumers is the focus of the inner core of the model and is the first theme of the thesis. Several discrete groups of the information poor are investigated to explore their information needs and behaviour. The middle layer of the model depicts the second theme of this thesis focusing on the attitudes of academics, health and social care professionals in their use and access of health information and IT in everyday practice. The information behaviour of the health information and library professional is the focus of the third theme of the thesis and is represented by the outer layer of the model. This theme explores the detail and the contribution of the role to the clinical team, the use of Evidence Based Medicine and Clinical Governance. Conclusions support the opening statement that the health information needs and behaviour of the general public, namely health information consumers are comparable with those of academics, health and social care professionals. Recommendations are made to promote better and more frequent use of health information and health information professionals in the everyday practice of health and social care; to improve the access and provision of health information for consumers.

Limited health literacy is a barrier to understanding health information. Simplifying text can reduce this barrier and possibly other known disparities in health. Unfortunately, few tools exist to simplify text with demonstrated impact on comprehension. By leveraging modern data sources integrated with natural language processing algorithms, we are developing the first semi-automated text simplification tool. We present two main contributions. First, we introduce our evidence-based development strategy for designing effective text simplification software and summarize initial, promising results. Second, we present a new study examining existing readability formulas, which are the most commonly used tools for text simplification in healthcare. We compare syllable count, the proxy for word difficulty used by most readability formulas, with our new metric ‘term familiarity’ and find that syllable count measures how difficult words ‘appear’ to be, but not their actual difficulty. In contrast, term familiarity can be used to measure actual difficulty.

Source: Masters Abstracts International, Volume: 47-06, page: 3557. Advisers: Linda Lloyd; Linda Piller. Includes bibliographical references.

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