Críticas Magazine

Loida García-Febo

PEW Report: Latinos obtain health information from the media... and libraries?
August 20, 2008

As per a report released on August 13 by the Pew Hispanic Center and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, more than eight in 10 Hispanics receive health information from alternative sources, such as television and radio. As a matter of fact, 83% of the 4,013 surveyed Hispanic adults said that they obtained information from the media. From those, 68% obtained information from the television.

Other figures: 71% of participants obtained information from medical professionals and 70% from social networks.

The report does not mention that Hispanics use libraries to obtain health information. So, I asked myself what libraries can do to provide access to health information? How libraries can go about this?

One alternative to provide health information to Hispanics/Latinos is to partner with the

National Network of Libraries of Medicine (NN/LM). This type of partnership can greatly help public and medical libraries to provide health information. Queens Library partners with the NN/LM to provide access to electronic documents and interlibrary loans. Our Consumer Health Resources Center and our Medical Librarian work very closely with the NN/LM. We also have applied and received NN/LM grants to enhance our presentations at health fairs. In the same way, I am sure the NN/LM is willing and I will say eager to work with libraries to help them provide access to health information.

Posted by Loida García-Febo on August 20, 2008 | Comments (0)