RE: Health Information Needs

["Margaret Landesman" <margaret.landesman@library.utah.edu>]

There are a lot of patients around here who do seem to want to get hold of
everything they can when a close relative becomes seriously ill - whether
they actually read what they find or whether it just gives them a sense of
control, of being able to actively do something useful, I don't know.  
But we try hard to help them get what they think they need.

But (and excuse me if you have discussed this - there has been way more
posting than I can actually read on this topic) I worry most about
dieticians, nurses, doctors, EMTs, school counselors, social workers, etc.
who are not associated with a school with a medical library.  In Utah,
that's all of them except those at the University of Utah in Salt Lake.  
We hope they are keeping up with the professional literature and
researching questions that come up in their jobs and with their patients.  
How do they do this effectively?  Especially considering that health
sciences libraries all seem to charge for ILL.  Mightn't they be more
inclined to use Open Access journals?

Margaret Landesman
Head, Collection Development
University of Utah

-----Original Message-----
[mailto:owner-liblicense-l@lists.yale.edu] On Behalf Of Peter Banks
Sent: Sunday, July 31, 2005 7:51 PM
To: liblicense-l@lists.yale.edu; mulliner@ohio.edu
Subject: Re: Health Information Needs

" I especially think that the primary justification for NIH support of
open access is the public's right to know."

You may note that this argument is one that NIH itself has largely
abandoned. The PMC repository is defended on the basis of creating a
stable archive, but not mainly as a public health initiative.

This is for good reason. Yes, there certainly are people who can read and
interpret the primary biomedical literature. Particularly in the case of
rare genetic disorders, patients can use the literature to identify
leading research clinicians and promising experimental lines of therapy.

But such patients are the minority. You should not assume that the people
who walk into university medical libraries are representative of the
general population. How many Black and Hispanic people do you serve? There
are about 35 million each in the US. How many poor people do you see? 36
million Americans live in poverty. How many uninsured people, who have
little use for the information they find because they have no access to
health care? 45 million are uninsured. And how many people with limited
medical literacy, who have difficulty understanding even a prescription
label, ever enter medical libraries? 90 million Americans have limited
medical literacy.

I've been accused of being patronizing for suggesting that some patients
cannot make use of biomedical literature. I hardly think that it is
patronizing to provide information tailored to an individual's educational
level, cultural heritage, and medical meeds, as we in fact do--whether
that means providing the journal Diabetes Care or a low-literacy
explanation of the basics of a diabetes meal plan.

I am not arguing against providing original research for the Sharon Terrys
of the world. I am arguing against pretending the OA does much for the
majority of people seeking answers to important health concerns.


Peter Banks
Publisher
American Diabetes Association
Email: pbanks@diabetes.org