Re: Health Literacy

[heatherm@eln.bc.ca]

Peter, Not to worry!

I agree completely that consumer health information and education is very
important.  Open access to the research literature can only help the
people who prepare and deliver consumer health services, as well as those
responsible for training these individuals.

One example - thanks for bringing this up, by the way - is the voluntary
health organizations.  Volunteers who work for health-related
organizations are one of the many groups that form part of the public, who
will be able to access the research literature to translate it into
information understandable by others in their organizations.

The ADA is a good case in point.  Naturally, your volunteers would have
ready access to all the journals you publish.  There are, however,
articles about diabetes - or related general medical articles, which would
be helpful - in other journals, are there not?  If this material becomes
openly accessible, won't this open up new avenues for at least some of
your volunteers?

Come to think of it, it makes sense to me that diabetes would be one of
the areas where many people might want to follow what is going on in the
literature - with a cure at hand, and research needed to figure out how to
make it widely accessible.  I'm sure many are curious about what is going
on, and wishing very much that the process would be speeded up as much as
possible.  No doubt anyone with diabetes who understands OA, wants it, and
immediately for each article, or sooner!

Making the research literature openly accessible to the public does not
mean that consumer health information will no longer be available.  As we
have seen with PubMed, the U.S.'s NIH has done a stellar job of working
towards open access on both types of resources. So - no worries, Peter!

Many thanks to Richard Feinman for bringing up some very important points
on this topic.

cheers,

Heather Morrison


On Mon,  1 Aug 2005 18:20:40 EDT liblicense-l@lists.yale.edu wrote:
> Those who think that Open Access will lead to a rising tide of health
> literacy should examine the sobering statistics at the Health Resources
> and Services Administration. See http://www.hrsa.gov/quality/healthlit.htm
> 
> Open Access may serve a select group of patients, but the HRSA data make
> clear the pressing need for health educators, librarians, voluntary health
> organizations, and government agencies to translate new research into a
> form that empowers people to achieve greater health. Without this context
> and interpretation, Open Access threatens to deepen the gulf between those
> who have adequate health information resources and those who do not.
> 
> Peter Banks
> Publisher
> American Diabetes Association
> Email: pbanks@diabetes.org