I just returned from a great trip to the 3rd Biannual National Latino Cancer Summit, held July 23-25, 2012, at the Mission Bay Campus of the University of California, San Francisco, where I presented an overview of NLM’s TOXNET system to researchers and community activists working to eliminate cancer in the Latino community. The summit is organized by Latinas Contra Cancer, a nonprofit organization established in 2003, which is dedicated to assisting Latino cancer patients and advocating on their behalf. In addition to organizing the Biannual summit, Latinas Contra Cancer mobilizes promotoras community health workers to provide linguistically appropriate patient navigator services in cancer centers, support groups, and educational workshops for cancer patients and their families. The organization also advocates for increased cancer research funding and community engagement, and provides access to bras, wigs, and prostheses for cancer patients and survivors. The summit is held biannually in San Francisco, with an estimated attendance of 200. (more…)

A half-day NN/LM Earthquake Summit was held Friday, April 6, 2012, at the University of California, San Francisco, Library and Center for Knowledge Management. Roughly twenty-five people attended the event, which was organized by Dan Wilson, Coordinator for the NN/LM National Emergency Preparedness & Response Initiative. Attendees represented both the Pacific Southwest and Pacific Northwest regions of the National Network of Libraries of Medicine (NN/LM). The excellent roster of featured speakers included Keith Knudsen, representing the United States Geological Survey (USGS); Monica Gowan, PhD Candidate, University of Canterbury, Christchurch, New Zealand; Siobhan Champ-Blackwell, representing the National Library of Medicine; Randy Brawley and Angela Nak, representing the US Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA); and Roberto Lombardi, representing San Francisco Public Library. A detailed meeting report with numerous photos from the event is available from the NN/LM Emergency Preparedness & Response Toolkit. (more…)

By Monica Garcia, MA, MLIS
Health and Life Sciences Librarian
UCLA Louise M. Darling Biomedical Library, Los Angeles

Linda Rosenstock, MD, MPH; Dean of the UCLA Fielding School of Public Health, moderated the one-hour panel presentation, Voices: Perspectives on Women in Medicine, on April 4, 2012, at the UCLA Louise M. Darling Biomedical Library. The discussion focused on the advancement of women in the medical profession, and the ways women have influenced and enhanced the practice of medicine, in the hopes of inspiring a new generation of medical pioneers. Dr. Rosenstock was joined by Margaret Stuber, MD, Jane and Marc Nathanson Professor of Psychiatry; Cambria Garell, MD, Pediatrics Resident, and Molly Diaz, MD/MPH PRIME student. The UCLA PRIME Program is a five-year program to develop leaders in medicine who address policy, care, and research issues in healthcare for underserved populations. The program leads to the M.D. degree, and a master’s degree in an area that complements the mission of the program. (more…)

Data collection for reportable diseases and epidemics has always been a focus for local, state, and federal health agencies in the US, and of great interest to health science librarians. In recent years, a key government initiative has been to “put public health data to work” and make it as transparently available as possible to any interested entity or individual, with the larger goal of free and easy access to the vast reservoir of data, in order to improve the nation’s health. Following this trend, on February 9, 2012, the Public Health Practice Committee of the International Society for Disease Surveillance (ISDS) hosted the webinar Public Health Surveillance in the Internet Cloud: The BioSense 2.0 Experience, featuring two key presenters. The inital segment of the webinar, with speaker Jeff Barr from Amazon, introduced basic principles of cloud computing and related security issues. The second speaker, Mike Alletto, a member of the BioSense 2.0 Redesign Team, provided a schematic of the BioSense 2.0 environment, including details regarding data storage and transmission. The presentation, including the electronic slides, was recorded and archived for viewing. (more…)

On December 16, 2011, in celebration of the end of NLM’s 175th anniversary, Clifford Lynch, Ph.D., Executive Director of the Coalition for Networked Information, gave the presentation Biomedical Libraries in the Next Decades: Open, Diffuse, and Very Personal, at the National Library of Medicine. Overriding themes of his presentation included the implications surrounding the convergence of the increasingly data intensive nature of the biological sciences with traditional journal publications, and the possibilities for large scale computational scholarship. Another key topic was how developments in the broader economic, social, and regulatory climate will affect the evolution of medical knowledgebases. He emphasized the importance to the life sciences community of having an institution such as NLM, as a focal point for aggregating the staggering amount of information and data generated in the life sciences. There’s nothing analogous to NLM in other areas of scholarship. (more…)

by Naomi C. Broering, MLS, MA, AHIP
Pacific College of Oriental Medicine, San Diego, CA

I highly recommend viewing this inspiring and provocative presentation about the future role of medical libraries. In addition to the summary submitted by Alan Carr, NN/LM PSR, I wish to note my personal observations. (more…)

The National Library of Medicine has funded awards for the 18th round of AIDS Community Information Outreach Projects. Since the beginning of this program in 1994, NLM has continued its HIV/AIDS-related outreach efforts to community-based organizations, patient advocacy groups, faith-based organizations, state and local departments of health, and libraries, including public libraries. (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…)

On April 8, 2011, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services launched two strategic plans aimed at reducing health disparities: the HHS Action Plan to Reduce Racial and Ethnic Health Disparities and the National Stakeholder Strategy for Achieving Health Equity. (more…)

On January 31, 2011, the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) and the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) unveiled the Dietary Guidelines for Americans, 2010.

The Dietary Guidelines for Americans (DGA) provides advice for making food choices that promote good health, a healthy weight, and help prevent disease for healthy Americans ages 2 and over. It forms the basis of Federal nutrition policy, education, outreach, and food assistance programs used by consumers, industry, nutrition educators, and health professionals. (more…)