By Vicki Burchfield
Department of Information Studies student
UCLA Graduate School of Education and Information Studies

During the winter quarter, 2012, UCLA Department of Information Studies student Vicki Burchfield completed an internship with the Regional Medical Library. Through her previous work as a Public Service Assistant at the Louise M. Darling Biomedical Library, Ms. Burchfield had experience with answering reference questions and researching subject guides. Upon completion of her internship, Ms. Burchfield wrote the following summary reflecting upon her experience and the lessons learned during the process of researching and creating an online subject guide for the Clinical Social Work Department at the UCLA Ronald Reagan Medical Center. (more…)

by Sherrill Olsen and Louisa Verma
Health Sciences Library, Huntington Hospital
Pasadena, CA

Last August, the Health Sciences Library at Huntington Hospital in Pasadena, CA received an outreach funding award to develop a web site for health issues related to teens. The result is Healthy Teens Pasadena (HTP), a multimedia web site that brings Pasadena-area and Internet resources for teen health issues together in one place for teens, parents, and adolescent educators. (more…)

by Yamila El-Khayat, MALS
Outreach Services Librarian, Arizona Health Sciences Library
University of Arizona
Tucson, AZ

Love of Reading Week, occurring February 13-17, 2012, was a national celebration promoting an appreciation of literature among students and adults through author readings, special presentations, and other literary activities. During this time, students had the opportunity to interact with different professionals in various fields, to hear about the importance of reading in career development, and to share reading a book that will leave a lasting memory. This has truly become a wonderful experience for grade school children in helping to explore new career fields and inspiring them to continue their education. (more…)

November is National Native American Heritage Month! Beginning as “American Indian Day” in 1915, National Native American Heritage Month recognizes the achievements of American Indians and Alaska Natives during the month of November. The Pacific Southwest Region is home to over 1.1 million American Indian and Alaska Natives (AI/AN), nearly 20% of the country’s AI/AN population. Unfortunately, AI/ANs have disproportionately high prevalence of diabetes, suicide, infant death, unintentional and motor vehicle injuries, chronic liver disease, and cirrhosis than other Americans. These health disparities may be the result of inadequate education, disproportionate poverty, discrimination in the delivery of health services, and cultural differences, caused by economic adversity and poor social conditions. As health information professionals, we work not only with our patrons, but we work with our hospitals, our institutions, and our communities. This allows us a unique role in the fight against health disparities: we have the health resources and we have the ability to bring these parties together to make change. (more…)

by Yamila El-Khayat, MALS
Outreach Services Librarian, Arizona Health Sciences Library
University of Arizona
Tucson, AZ

On September 7-8, 2011, I attended the Arizona Refugee Resettlement Conference, which is dedicated to identifying the needs and providing a better understanding of the refugee community, and how we can come together to help enrich the lives of refugees. The event was held at the Westin La Paloma in Tucson, Arizona. There were approximately 400 participants, from many different sectors and companies, but all united in the cause to help the refugee population adapt to their foreign country and culture. (more…)

By Yamila El-Khayat, Outreach Services Librarian, Arizona Health Sciences Library

I recently came back from attending the Arizona State Library Summit, “Adult Services for the 21st Century Summit: Living Longer, Living Better” which gives public librarians a space to learn about community resources and also attend sessions by various speakers. The event took place in the heart of Phoenix, our state’s capital city. The conference drew approximately 71 participants from all around Arizona. This two-day event had a theme centered on health information. (more…)

by Darlene Parker-Kelly, MSLS
Director, Library and Learning Resource Center
Charles Drew University of Medicine and Science
Los Angeles, CA

It was not long ago that I accepted the position of Director of Library/Learning Resource Center at Charles R. Drew University (CDU), located in south Los Angeles, and I knew immediately that our Library needed to become involved in outreach initiatives. My efforts began with a call to Judy Consales, the Director of the Louise M. Darling Biomedical Library at UCLA, and she indicated that I needed to contact the Regional Medical Library (RML), and so the quest began. The first outreach initiative involved a collaboration between CDU Health Sciences Library and the Louise M. Darling Biomedical Library at UCLA, which led to partnerships with a number of community organizations. Cathy Brown, Outreach Coordinator from the UCLA Biomedical Library, and I were the primary outreach organizers. Our project goal was to participate in four health or community fairs, but we became ambitious and by the end of the project we had successfully participated in 10 health fairs! We attended three chamber of commerce events, three faith-based organization events, three women’s conferences, and one school readiness event. (more…)

by Naomi C. Broering, MLS, MA, AHIP; Gregory A. Chauncey, MBA; Stacy Gomes, PhD.
Pacific College of Oriental Medicine, San Diego, CA

The Pacific College of Oriental Medicine’s (PCOM) Library received Major Outreach Award funding from the RML in 2009, for an 18-month project that ended in April 2011. The overall project goal was to promote easy-to-use Web informatics access to NLM and NIH online health information resources for consumers and health professionals. This gargantuan, but fun task involved networking and collaborating with an eight-member team of San Diego public libraries, faith-based organizations, a community center, and affiliated clinics, to implement an instructional program with a variety of teaching alternatives targeting an ethnically diverse community. We taught hands-on workshops, developed electronic tutorials, held live web-based sessions that were videotaped, produced DVDs, and conducted a series of Webinars for health care practitioners. In addition, we made web page enhancements, such as adding an A to Z database arrangement, new online tutorials of PubMed and MedlinePlus, and implementation of Web 2.0 features used for instructional training of NLM resources. Examples of links for tutorials and databases are on the PCOM web site. It was an ambitious project, but extremely rewarding! (more…)

On June 2, 2011, First Lady Michelle Obama and Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack launched the federal government’s new food icon, MyPlate. MyPlate is a new generation icon that will assist consumers in building a healthy plate during meal times. “MyPlate is an uncomplicated symbol to help remind people to think about their food choices in order to lead healthier lifestyles,” said Secretary Vilsack. The MyPlate icon, as seen to the right, uses a place setting to help consumers visualize the healthy proportions of fruit, vegetable, grains, protein and dairy food groups.

The MyPlate website, ChooseMyPlate.gov, provides practical information to individuals, health professionals, nutrition educators, and the food industry to help consumers build healthier diets with resources and tools for dietary assessment, nutrition education, and other user-friendly nutrition information. The online resources and tools can empower people to make healthier food choices for themselves, their families, and their children. Later this year, USDA will unveil an exciting “go-to” online tool that consumers can use to personalize and manage their dietary and physical activity choices.

MyPlate was developed using guidelines established by the 2010 Dietary Guidelines for Americans, which was released earlier this year. A summary of the launch is available in a previous issue of Latitudes. Some of the selected guidelines for consumers from the 2010 Dietary Guidelines for Americans include:

• Enjoy your food, but eat less.
• Avoid oversized portions.
• Make half your plate fruits and vegetables.
• Make at least half your grains whole grains.
• Switch to fat-free or low-fat (1%) milk.
• Compare sodium in foods like soup, bread, and frozen meals ― and choose the foods with lower numbers.
• Drink water instead of sugary drinks.

MyPlate will replace the MyPyramid image as the government’s primary food group symbol. MyPyramid, which was introduced in 2005 alongside the 2005 Dietary Guidelines for Americans report, will still be available for health professionals and nutrition educators in the For Professionals section of the new MyPlate website.

By Kay Deeney, Educational Services Coordinator

I recently attended the Adult Congenital Heart Association (ACHA) Conference in Los Angeles. What is unique and interesting about this conference is that people with the disease, patients and family members along with the health care practitioners attend together. This community engagement is useful for both the health care providers and the people with this disorder. Congenital heart disease (CHD) runs the gamut from holes in the heart to misplaced, missing or malformed valves, vessels and heart chambers. CHD affects both children and adults. About 10% of CHD is not diagnosed until patients are adults. Think of the athletes who develop a cardiac problem and then realize they were born with a heart defect. (more…)