(Bethesda, Md.) -- Noting that "the Internet offers us one of the best opportunities for improving access to reliable, up-to-date, health information," Donald A.B. Lindberg, M.D., Director of the National Library of Medicine, announced that the Library was funding 49 electronic health information projects in 34 states, affecting rural, inner-city, and suburban areas.
"The projects we are supporting will increase Internet access in a variety of settings, from middle schools serving low income and educationally underserved students to shopping malls and senior centers," Dr. Lindberg said. "These are imaginative and well-targeted projects that will help us determine how we can best provide millions of Americans who are still not connected to the Internet with access to health information. They will stimulate medical libraries, local public libraries, and other organizations to work together to provide new electronic health information services for all citizens in a community."
Henry Foster, M.D., Senior Advisor to President Clinton on Teen and Youth Issues, said that "Many of the contracts will focus on making computers available in community-based centers and teaching computer skills to minorities and low-income populations-individuals who lack access to computers and hence fail to gain the needed computer skills essential to contemporary American living. From Native Americans in Wyoming, to minority populations in the lower Mississippi Delta, to those isolated in Appalachia, these consumers will soon have access to web-based health information. We hope that the skills consumers learn through these projects will enable them to make better informed health decisions." Dr. Foster is also a member of the Library's Board of Regents.
For example:
The Wyoming Medical Center will build partnerships with libraries in the local counties. The 13-county area covered by this project encompasses nearly half the population of Wyoming, including many Native Americans.
In Atlanta, Georgia, Emory University Health Sciences Center Library will team up with a hospital, a regional library, and the Cascade United Methodist Church in training librarians to help consumers search for health information, and develop a consumer health web site.
The Preuss School, in La Jolla, California, is a new charter school for a select group of 150 sixth, seventh, and eighth graders. Geared to low income and educationally underserved students, the school's mission is to prepare them for admission and graduation from a university. The University of California at San Diego Biomedical Library will team up with the middle school's faculty to create and integrate into the curriculum a health website especially geared to these students.
The University of Missouri plans to reach out to consumers at a location where they frequently congregate-the shopping mall. The University sponsors a Consumer Information Center in the Columbia (Missouri) Mall that will be expanded to include more health care links.
The Massachusetts General Hospital will join forces with community-based organizations in the area to create a Health Resource Center that will provide online healthcare information for an exceptionally diverse population of residents.
The State University of New York Health Science Center in Syracuse will team up with an organization serving older adults to offer consumer health information services to the senior population in that city and surrounding six counties. Project organizers will teach older adults how to access the World Wide Web to find health information and will develop a Web-based tutorial. On the NLM Web site there are descriptions of each of the 49 projects, including the name of the project director, phone and fax numbers, and e-mail addresses. The projects total more than $1 million and will run variously from one year to 18 months.
The National Library of Medicine is a component of the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Maryland. It is the world's largest medical library with holdings of more than 5 million books, journals, and other materials. Its treasures span the centuries, from the text of an 11th century Islamic medical manuscript to the immense image files of the "Visible Humans."
The Library's Web site at www.nlm.nih.gov carries a description of each project.