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Dragonfly, Summer 2001 Health Information Literacy in Washington State

Susan Barnes
Resource Sharing Coordinator

Last year, 100 million Americans used the Internet to get health care information, up from 70 million the previous year, according to Harris Interactive. Only Web sites devoted to weather and sports received more visitors than those devoted to health. Traffic at health sites last year for the first time exceeded porno sites! (from the June 8, 2001 issue of the Chicago Sun-Times.) Meanwhile, another Harris Interactive study has reported that physicians have become less resistant to the Internet: 55 percent of physicians use e-mail to communicate with professional colleagues, while 42 percent work in practices with Web sites (up from 29 percent in 1999). Only 7 percent of doctors aren't online at all. As they become more knowledgeable about using the Internet, some physicians are beginning to refer their patients to Web resources (from the May 17, 2001 issue of the Minneapolis Star Tribune).

Health information is clearly of almost supreme importance to our family, friends, neighbors, library users, and co-workers. It's also extremely important to us - and in additional ways, since health information is the substance that most of us work with for a living. However, users of health information must approach their searching with care, and scrutinize what they find. A recent study of accessibility and quality of health information on the Internet concluded that search engines are not efficient and that coverage of key information on Web sites is poor and inconsistent (from JAMA, 285 (20):2612-21, May 23/30, 2001). In the health information arena, for materials that are online and off, evaluation is a critical component of information literacy skills and has been a major part of the instruction that many of us provide to our clientele.

For those of you who wonder what "information literacy" means, there are many definitions of it, some of them very long (see http://library.austin.cc.tx.us/staff/lnavarro/CommunityPartnerships/infolit.html for some examples). A pragmatic way to think of it is that information literacy is the ability to find, evaluate, and use information. Most, if not all, of the instruction that librarians provide - no matter whether medical, public, or some other species - could be thought of as information literacy instruction. Quality information literacy instruction touches on both analog and digital resources. Health care users and health professionals are finding information that they need on the Internet, often using computers on libraries' tables. Meanwhile, other important information resides in printed volumes on libraries' shelves.

Fortunately, use of the Internet is not causing library use to decline - at least, not in the state of Washington, as a recent survey has shown. While the rise of the Internet has decreased visits to library buildings among some online computer users, overall library use in the state is holding steady. In fact, just as many Washingtonians are visiting the library more often as less often. One in three adult Washington residents use their local public libraries at least once a month or more often to do research and get information. Results also hint that the Internet may actually be expanding library usage in many cases, through libraries' provision of electronic full text to their users. Still, 25% of respondents were unsure what they would use a computer at a library for (let's hope that none of those respondents work in the health sciences!).

This survey was the first step in the Washington State Library's Information Literacy campaign. The Washington State Library (WSL) has received a grant funded by the Federal Library Services and Technology Act to conduct this statewide campaign to publicize the vast array of information sources available from libraries. Publicity will also include details about location and navigation assistance that library staff can provide. Behind the scenes, WSL will be conducting training and refresher sessions for library staff to ensure their readiness to respond to questions generated by the publicity campaign. This project is an important step towards building a population which has the skills it needs to find, evaluate, and use information, including - perhaps especially - health information. WSL will share what it learns from this project with other states so that they have an opportunity to take the same approach.

More information about the survey:

• Executive summary
• Overview of results (PowerPoint presentation)

URL: http://nnlm.gov/pnr/news/200107/wslsurvey.html