Promoting Older Adults’ Use of Online Health Information Sources: An intergenerational train-the-trainer approach

One of the stated goals of the NNLM is to “promote awareness of, access to, and use of biomedical information resources for health professionals and the public, with a particular emphasis on contributing to the Healthy People 2020 goal of eliminating health disparities.” Bentley University Library staff, in partnership with students in Dr. Danielle Blanch Hartigan’s Health Psychology (PS340) course and the Bentley Service-Learning and Civic Engagement Center (BSLCE), will create and present resources to older adults at the Waltham Council on Aging (WCA) community centers, on searching for, evaluating, and communicating about health information on the internet. The overall goal is to improve the online health information-seeking skills of older adults in the community using a train-the-trainer model. In the process of achieving this goal, Bentley librarians will become more adept at using NLM resources and students will learn how to critically evaluate health information sources online.