The Emergency Access Initiative (EAI) managed by the National Library of Medicine (NLM) will end free access for Haiti earthquake response on Friday, March 19, 2010. The Initiative will have been active for 8 weeks since soon after the Haiti earthquake, thanks to the generous participation of several publishers.

EAI (http://eai.nlm.nih.gov) provides temporary free access to online journals and e-books for users affected by a disaster. The primary goal is to provide a temporary collection replacement for users whose normal access to biomedical literature is unavailable through the destruction of infrastructure at the site of a disaster. It also serves as a resource to medical personnel deployed to those areas.

NLM is interested in any feedback you have on the EAI project. In particular, they are interested in feedback from medical personnel that were deployed to Haiti or other disaster event; or from library staff supporting those personnel. They would like feedback on the project itself, the web site, and the content. They are very interested to hear stories from Haiti responders and others who may have benefited from having access to these books and journals. Also, if you needed access and were unable to get it or didn’t know about EAI until now, please let them know. Comments may be sent to through NLM’s customer service form at http://apps.nlm.nih.gov/mainweb/siebel/nlm/index.cfm or emailed to custserv@nlm.nih.gov.

The National Library of Medicine announces a new page of Chile earthquake information for those in the United States and elsewhere who are monitoring or responding to the medical and public health needs in Chile. It is available at http://disasterinfo.nlm.nih.gov/dimrc/chileearthquake.html.

The page lists new Web links about the Chile earthquake aftermath from both government agencies and non-governmental organizations (NGOs). People locators, social media resources, and alerts for travelers to Chile are also listed.

A separate page on “Earthquakes – Resources for Response and Recovery” (http://disasterinfo.nlm.nih.gov/dimrc/earthquakes.html) links to background information on earthquakes and subsequent health issues, such as traumatic injuries, guidelines for responders, stress and coping, and sanitation issues.

Please send your comments and suggestions about additional Chile-related health information content to tehip@teh.nlm.nih.gov. This information is compiled by the Disaster Information Management Research Center, Specialized Information Services, US National Library of Medicine.

The Emergency Access Initiative (EAI) is a partnership of the National Library of Medicine, the National Network of Libraries of Medicine, and the Professional/Scholarly Publishing Division of the Association of American Publishers. EAI provides free access to full text articles from major biomedicine titles to healthcare professionals, librarians, and the public in the United States affected by disasters. The Initiative was activated on January 25 and free access to full text publications has been extended to March 19, 2010. For more information go to: http://eai.nlm.nih.gov.

A new page on Haiti earthquake health information links from NLM’s Disaster Information Management Research Center is now available at http://disaster.nlm.nih.gov/dimrc/haitiearthquake.html.

The page lists new web pages about the Haiti earthquake situation from both government agencies and non-governmental organizations (NGOs). There is also a section on Haitian Creole and French-language materials. Links to background information on earthquakes and subsequent health issues, such as public health assessments, emergency surgical care, and management of dead bodies, are included.

This page will continue to expand and will add a section on hazards from concrete dust and other airborne particulates from the collapsed buildings and subsequent clean-up activities.

The National Information Center on Health Services Research and Health Care Technology (NICHSR) in collaboration with the Medical Library Association (MLA) is very pleased to announce the following 4-part webinar series on Health Indicators.

Registration and descriptions of the Health Indicators Webinar Series are available at http://www.nlm.nih.gov/nichsr/healthindicators/index.html.

Part I: Health Indicators: Overview – Wednesday, Jan. 20, 1:00-2:00pm

Part II: Community Health Status Indicators (CHSI) – Wednesday, Jan. 27, 1:00-2:00pm

Part III: Practical Approaches for Using Health Indicators – Wednesday, Feb. 3, 1:00-2:00pm

Part IV: Examples of Health Indicator Projects* – Wednesday, Feb. 10, 1:00-2:00pm

*The proposed date is contingent upon the availability of two important indicator projects (MATCH and SUSA) which are currently under development.

The presenters, Nancy Allee and Cheryl Wold, have developed informative sessions to acquaint you with the variety, depth, use, and purposes of health indicators, as well as examples of ways in which you can become involved with your communities through these types of projects.

Archived versions will be available in the future.

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services invites public comments on the draft set of objectives for Healthy People 2020. For three decades, Healthy People has provided a set of national 10-year health promotion and disease prevention objectives aimed at improving the health of all Americans. It is grounded in the notion that establishing objectives and providing benchmarks to track and monitor progress over time can motivate, guide, and focus action.

New proposed health topic areas for Healthy People 2020 include:
• Adolescent Health
• Blood Disorders and Blood Safety
• Early and Middle Childhood
• Genomics
• Global Health
• Healthcare-Associated Infections
• Quality of Life and Well-Being
• Social Determinants of Health

Of particular interest to health science librarians and information professionals are objectives for Health Communication and Health IT. This topic area includes objectives related to health literacy, quality health websites, health information access, electronic health records, personalized health information resources, and electronic health information exchange by providers and health agencies.

Visit the Proposed Healthy People 2020 Objectives – List for Public Comment to:
• View proposed draft objectives for Healthy People 2020
• Comment on the proposed objectives
• Comment on the topic areas
• Suggest additional objectives
• Suggest topic areas you feel are missing from the draft set

Public comments will be accepted through December 31, 2009.

New Topic Pages on PHPartners.org:

Dental Public Health is available at http://phpartners.org/dentalhealth.html.

Public Health Genomics is available at http://phpartners.org/public_health_genomics.html.

Partners in Information Access for the Public Health Workforce, PHPartners.org, is a collaboration of U.S. government agencies, public health organizations, and health sciences libraries. The mission of PHPartners is to help the public health workforce find and use information effectively to improve and protect the public’s health.

PHPartners.org welcomes suggestions of new links to post. Please suggest links at http://phpartners.org/suggestlink.html.

To keep up-to-date with public health news and online information resources, you can subscribe to the PHPartners RSS feed at http://phpartners.org/rss_phpartners.xml, or to the weekly email announcement list.

Do you work with public health professionals? Are you interested in public health? Are you interested in attending the American Public Health Association Annual Meeting?

This year’s APHA meeting will take place in Philadelphia, PA from November 7-11, 2009. Its theme will be Water and Public Health.

The Grace and Harold Sewell Memorial Fund, Inc. is offering stipends to librarians and other information professionals to help cover the costs of their attending and/or participating in this meeting. Successful applicants from the greater Philadelphia area will receive a stipend of at least $650. Successful applicants from outside greater Philadelphia will receive at least $1,000. This amount covers most of the APHA Membership at $195 and Early Bird (pre-August 28, 2009) Member Registration at $395. Though significant, these amounts will NOT cover all costs, so stipend recipients will need to find additional monies to cover remaining costs.

Completed applications are due July 24, 2009–just over a month from today. To apply, read and complete the application form attached or download the Word application form at http://phha.mlanet.org/. Add all required application materials to the completed form and send as a SINGLE email attachment to Joey Nicholson at jnicholson@nyam.org.

For more information, contact Joey Nicholson at jnicholson@nyam.org.

Please forward this message to others who may be interested.

Hope you’ll join us at this colorful and fascinating meeting!

Joey Nicholson
Chair, Client Relations Committee
PH/HA Section, MLA

The American Public Health Association’s campaign, Healthiest Nation in One Generation, is aimed at raising awareness of the role of public health in ensuring a healthy America and illustrating how investments in public health can dramatically improve health outcomes in the span of one generation. The United States spends more on health than any other country, but we are not as the healthy as many other developed countries. The campaign encourages support of public health at the local level and for individuals to adopt healthy lifestyles such as not smoking and healthy eating.

The Alliance to Make US Healthiest is made up of more than one thousand companies and individuals who are doing their part to make the United States a healthier place to live, work, and play. The Alliance’s scope of interest extends beyond healthcare to a commitment to health equity and understanding the many factors that determine health and well-being (education, housing, transportation, food, and prosperity). Anyone can join the Alliance to help the U.S. become the healthiest nation in a healthier world.

Both campaigns use videos and other social tools to disseminate their messages. The videos can be easily shared with friends, family, and coworkers through email, Facebook, YouTube, and other media sharing tools.

According to the CDC, as of yesterday (26 April) there were no reported cases of swine flu in the New England region.

The CDC with HHS has compiled information available on the swine flu at: http://www.cdc.gov/swineflu/

Among the information pages are:

Interim CDC Guidance for Nonpharmaceutical Community Mitigation in Response to Human Infections with Swine Influenza (H1N1) Virus: http://www.cdc.gov/swineflu/mitigation.htm

Guidance for Clinicians & Public Health Professionals: http://www.cdc.gov/swineflu/guidance/

You can use the following widget to code in the CDC’s Swine Flu Information website (a green box with links):

<script type=”text/javascript” src=”http://transparency.cit.nih.gov/widgets/swinelinks.cfm?javascript“></script><noscript><iframe src=”http://transparency.cit.nih.gov/widgets/swinelinks.cfm” name=”swineframe” frameborder=0 id=”swineframe” scrolling=”no” height=”160″ width=”198″ marginheight=”0″ marginwidth=”0″ ></iframe></noscript>