Poster Board Number: 183
Title: Just Talking About It Helps! Rethinking Information Advocacy to Decrease Health Disparities and Promote Health Equity
Objective: To (1) increase awareness of disparities in health care among medical librarians, (2) promote resources to providers related to increasing awareness of health disparities and health equity, and (3) provide access to information on health care disparities and health equity to medical providers.
Methods: Librarians will partner with clinicians to create a toolkit for use by medical providers. The toolkit will reside on an existing website (www.stop-disparities.org). Tool kit resources will include preformulated PubMed current awareness searches, bibliographic resources, and links to related resources. The Journal of the American Academy of Physician Assistants (JAAPA) has initiated an online column focused on health care disparities: "Eliminating Health Disparities: What Works?" The ongoing, monthly column features a partnership between a physician assistant author and a medical librarian resource coordinator. Research shows "the activation of egalitarian norms has the potential to prevent stereotyping." In other words, just talking about it helps. Librarians can take an active role in the activation of these norms by referring clinicians to data on disparities, including such data with search results, linking to continuing medical education on this topic, and providing statistics.
Results: The online column for JAAPA continues, with medical librarians working with physician assistants to create monthly updates about health disparities research and informational tools. These resources are designed to assist clinicians as well as to provide medical librarians with resources to assist providers in integrating data about health disparities into their clinical practice and research efforts. Additionally, planning for a collaborative project between physician assistants and medical librarians is underway, aimed at providing access to a health disparities toolkit for medical librarians with the goal of promoting this toolkit to clinicians.
Conclusions: Medical librarians and physician assistants are well suited to partner in increasing awareness of health disparities. By working together in the designing and promoting of resources and information aimed at highlighting health disparities, physician assistants and medical librarians can decrease the impact of these disparities on patient care.
Authors: Patricia J. Devine, Network Coordinator, Pacific Northwest Region, National Network of Libraries of Medicine, Seattle, WA; James E. Anderson, Clinical Informatics Instructor, University of Washington Medicine Information Technology Services, Harborview Medical Center, Seattle, WA
