EOA 2016-17: Community Access to Health Information Training in San Diego

The Pacific College of Oriental College PCOM proposes a collaborative health information outreach project to increase awareness and access of NLM/NIH online resources by providing training workshops for consumers and health professionals in San Diego. The goal is to extend access to health care information through training workshops for all residents, with emphasis on reaching multicultural, diverse and minority populations at their communities, and to improve the library's technologies needed to conduct the project. The partners include eight organizations consisting of PCOM College and affiliated clinics, SD County, SD City and Chula Vista public libraries, LJ senior community center, the LGBT center, and Prince Chapel AME church. The PCOM library will provide free instructional workshops on access to NLM's MedlinePlus, PubMed, Clinical trials, and more on several medical topics using multiple technologies including laptops. iPads, and smartphones. Based on community assessment discussions with partnering sites and county population data, the target groups will be consumers, nurses and health practitioners of varying ages and ethnicity. Plans are to conduct 16 to 20 workshops for 700 to 800 attendees in San Diego multi-ethnic neighborhoods. Live sessions will be offered in Spanish, Chinese, and searches of multiple languages as needed. The PCOM librarian, the health information instructor, and staff conducting the project are highly experienced.