Health Literacy Outreach Award: Access Health at East Adams

The East Adams Library District is a small, 95 library in Eastern Washington State that serves multiple small communities in the eastern part of Adams County. Over the years, our communities have steadily lost access to social and health services while seeing a severe decline in annual income per capita all while experiencing an increase in mental and physical health related issues. Our library has decided to confront this issue head on with the creation of Access Health at East Adams. Access Health at East Adams will address our patrons needs in three ways. The first component is our adult centric, monthly health literacy program which will run for the period of one year. The program follows NNLMs selected National Health Observances focusing on one topic per month and provides programming such as visiting speakers and other activities that cater to that specific topic as well as to our community. The second component is a dedicated health and social services computer and workstation within the library which would provide patrons the ability to access various health and social services including but not limited to: MedlinePlus, Genetics Home Reference, health insurance and/or Medicare/Medicaid, telemedicine, and other needs-based programs. The last component of Access Health at East Adams is increasing the level of service our library staff will be able to offer patrons looking for information on various health topics. This will be accomplished by increasing our medical and health catalog, training staff on NNLM/NLM/NIH health information websites and providing key staff the opportunity to attend conferences that will bolster the Access Health at East Adams health literacy program and the librarys ability to meet the publics needs. Access Health at East Adams allows our library to join the NNLM in their mission to improve the publics access to information to enable them to make informed decisions about their health.