Barb Garner has been the editor of Focus on Basics for its entire 11 years. She has turned out over 30 issues, filled with useful, timely and practical articles that bring adult literacy and learning research into the practical arena. Focus on Basics’ materials are available on the Internet and two more issues of Focus on Basics are in the works. The first is on numeracy, and should be available in May, 2008. The second is on literacy and health, and should be available in October, 2008.

All issues of Focus on Basics are archieved on the National Center for the Study of Adult Learning and Literacy (NCSALL) web site at http://www.ncsall.net/index.php?id=15. Click on Focus on Basics on the right side of the home page and you will be linked to the Focus on Basics page. All the issues are listed to the left, by theme and in the body of the site by volume; or, click on the subject index to the right to bring up a list of topics. Click on the topic that concerns you and you will find links not only to the Focus on Basics articles that address the topic, plus other NCSALL publications on the topic.

The National Library of Medicine has released the NLM Drug Information Portal. The site is at http://druginfo.nlm.nih.gov. The NLM Drug Information Portal gives the public, healthcare professionals, and researchers a gateway to current, accurate and understandable drug information from the National Library of Medicine and other key government agencies.

More than 12,000 drug records are available for searching. The search interface is straightforward, requiring only a drug name as a search term, and successful searching is enhanced by the assistance of a spellchecker. Information buttons and balloon pop-ups guide the user by providing helpful hints or a description of the resource and links to the source website.

Did you know that the majority of those who die suddenly of heart disease have no previous symptoms? Heart disease is the #1 killer of Americans, claiming more than half a million lives each year.

Check out the MedlinePlus topic pages on Heart Diseases and Heart Disease Prevention. Also read the latest news on heart disease at http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/alphanews_h.html#heartdiseases. For heart disease prevention, go to http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/heartdiseasesprevention.html.

Know the risk factors of heart disease and the signs and symptoms of a heart attack. The Healthy Heart Guide (PDF) from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services provides an action plan for improving your health and outlines four major habits that help prevent heart disease:

• Eating healthy foods
• Getting regular physical exercise
• Maintaining a healthy weight
• Avoiding smoking

Your Guide to a Healthy Heart can be found at http://www.nhlbi.nih.gov/health/public/heart/other/your_guide/healthyheart.pdf

Women and Heart Disease: Quick Facts can be found at http://www.cdc.gov/DHDSP/library/fs_women_heart.htm

By Mandy Meloy, community outreach coordinator

Most of us know that Medlineplus.gov is a reliable, up-to-date health information website for consumers created by the National Library of Medicine (NLM). But, did you know that Medlineplus.gov offers resources for health professionals, too?
These resources include:

• Patient Education Materials such as handouts, pictures, easy-to-read resources, and interactive tutorials in English and Spanish.
• Access to images, diagrams, surgical videos, directories, and the latest health news.
• Searches in Pubmed/MEDLINE
• Links to other NLM and National Institutes of Health (NIH) databases including ClinicalTrials.gov, NIHSeniorHealth.gov, DailyMed, Dietary Supplements Labels Database, and Genetics Home Reference
• Links to additional resources including professional organizations and popular topics such as genetic testing and health literacy.

To further help health professionals keep up-to-date, MedlinePlus offers email lists and RSS feeds on general or specific topics and a subscription to the NIH MedlinePlus Magazine. MedlinePlus can also assist health professionals with free materials to empower patients to look up quality information on their own health at www.informationrx.org.

For a MedlinePlus brochure for Health Professionals, please see http://nnlm.gov/training/resources/mp4hptri.doc. This brochure may be freely reproduced and was developed by the National Network of Libraries of Medicine (NN/LM) staff.

http://www.hrsa.gov/healthliteracy/training.htm/

The Health Resources and Services Administration is offering a new, free, online course, “Unified Health Communication 101: Addressing Health Literacy, Cultural Competency, and Limited English Proficiency”. Those taking the course can receive five credits (CEU/CE, CHES, CME, CNE). The course does not offer MLA CE, but is valuable for librarians as they reach out to provide support and information to the public and health professionals and would provide them another option to obtain continuing education units. To take the course, you will need to register with TRAIN, the distance-learning resource for public health professionals sponsored by the Public Health Foundation with support from HRSA.

In addition, The Unified Health Communication course complements The Medical Library Association and National Institutes of Health/National Library of Medicine (NLM) work in literacy research, curriculum design and hospital outreach. Please, freely share this information with other colleagues.

The National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI) will offer their Field Guide to GenBank and NCBI Molecular Biology Resources course at UNC-Chapel Hill on March 12 and 13 (UNC Spring Break week). This lecture and hands-on computer workshop on GenBank and related databases will cover effective use of the Entrez databases and search service, the BLAST similarity search engine, genome data and related resources. Registration opens in early February. For more information and registration, see:
http://www.hsl.unc.edu/Collections/Bioinformatics/BBTForum-NCBIFieldGuide-Mar2008.cfm

Participating in Clinical Trials

Table of Contents

• What is Clinical Trial?
• Finding a Clinical Trial
• Informed Consent
• Should I Join a Clinical Trial?
• Frequently Asked Questions
• MedlinePlus - more information on Participating in Clinical Trials

The new clinical trials topic on NIHSeniorHealth will help older adults understand this vital area of medical research. Older adults who log on to NIHSeniorHealth.gov will find information to help them make informed decisions, including questions they should ask and the answers they should look for if they are thinking of joining a trial. The new topic explains basic terms, the types and phases of trials, the informed consent process and the benefits, risks, and built-in safeguards for trial participants.

Developed by the National Library of Medicine, Participating in Clinical Trials is the latest addition to NIHSeniorHealth’s roster of 33 topics targeting the health interests of older adults.

December 18, 2007

Read the latest issue of the NIH MedlinePlus Magazine. http://www.fnlm.org/magazine/fall07.pdf
Highlights include:

• Controlling Asthma
• Easing Chronic Pain
• Understanding Alzheimer’s
• Space: The New Medical Frontier

http://foundation.acponline.org/hl/hcc2007.htm

On Wednesday, November 28, 2007, the American College of Physicians Foundation sponsored its 6th annual National Health Communication Conference, “Advances in Health Literacy” at the National Academy of Sciences in Washington, D.C. This year’s conference challenged researchers, clinicians, and educators to “present evidence-based solutions to the problems associated with low health literacy and discuss meaningful innovations to improve health outcomes and service” (Introductions and Opening Remarks by Harold J. Fallon, MD, MACP http://foundation.acponline.org/files/hcc2007/fallon07.pdf). Accessed 12/4/2007.

The conference forums, mainly presented as roundtable discussions, produced thoughtful solutions to the difficult problem of increasing health literacy. One such solution, presented by Alastair J. J. Wood in “Simplifying Medication Scheduling – Can We Confuse Patients Less?” is to develop a universal medication schedule on pill bottles whenever possible (there are always exceptions). According to Wood, medications require that people “know what to take, how many pills to take, and when to take them” (http://foundation.acponline.org/files/hcc2007/wood07.pdf Accessed 12/4/2007. Presentation slide 2). This universal medication schedule would show people what to take, how many to take, and when to take them in a picture format such as below:

Although the conference was directed towards physicians, nurses, pharmacists, educators, patient education material writers, librarians, and others working to increase health literacy also attended. The most notable presentation stated the importance of partnerships. Elyse Barbell Rudolph, Executive Director, New York City’s Literacy Assistance Center, shared her experience with a local hospital. The literacy assistance center and the hospital partnered with each other to increase health literacy. After the literacy center staff trained the health professionals to be clear and speak in plain language, the literacy center asked the hospital health professionals to speak to a basic ESL class at the literacy center about their jobs and responsibilities as health care providers. After the health professionals spoke with the class, the class on a separate occasion went to the hospital to tour the relevant facilities (emergency room, maternity ward, etc.) and ask questions. The class participants then participated in a teach-back session with their classmates in hopes of increasing their knowledge and expectations of and comfort with the health care system in the United States. Barbell Rudolph demonstrated that the partnerships helped both the students and the health professionals. She states,

Partnerships have helped adult educators to “contextualize” the curriculum by using real life material (e.g. registration forms)…[and] demystify the health care system through visits to health care facilities…[and] partnerships have helped demonstrate the gap between what doctors and other health care professionals and administrators think they have communicated and what patients have understood…[and] demonstrate that clinical communication can be a barrier, along with educational deficits of patients (Literacy Community Centers and Health Literacy, Elyse Barbell Rudolph, http://foundation.acponline.org/files/hcc2007/rudolph07.pdf Accessed 12/4/2007. Presentation slides 8 and 9).

The American College of Physicians Foundation 6th annual National Health Communication Conference, “Advances in Health Literacy” was useful and informative. The participants heard from researchers, clinicians, and educators and gained new knowledge and even took home the new easy-to-read American College of Physicians Foundation Living with Diabetes, an Everyday Guide for You and Your Family. This guide has photographs and stories of real people who have diabetes and focuses on the “need to know and do vs. the nice to know” (Terry Davis, http://foundation.acponline.org/files/hcc2007/davis07.pdf Accessed 12/4/2007. Presentation slide 3).

For fuller information on the conference, health literacy issues, and the call for submissions for the November 19, 2008 conference, please see http://foundation.acponline.org/. Hopefully there will be librarians presenting on their partnerships at the 2008 conference.

www.cdc.gov/ncipc/duip/spotlite/3d.htm

December is National Drunk and Drugged Driving Prevention Month (3D Month) by Presidential Proclamation. Though thousands of people die or are injured in alcohol-related motor vehicle crashes each year in the United States, effective measures to prevent these deaths and injuries do exist.

Resources available on the Internet include:

MedlinePlus.gov: Motor Vehicle Safety
(http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/motorvehiclesafety.html)

About every twelve minutes, someone in the U.S. dies from a motor vehicle crash. Trying to prevent these crashes is one part of motor vehicle safety.

National Highway Traffic Safety Administration
(www.nhtsa.dot.gov)
Over the limit, under arrest! This promotional planner provides marketing materials, media tools and marketing ideas you can distribute to fit your local needs and objectives while at the same time partnering with other states, communities and organizations all across the country on this promotional program.

Insurance Institute for Highway Safety
(http://www.iihs.org/)
The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, a nonprofit, independent, scientific and educational organization, was founded in 1959.It sponsors English and Spanish materials about drunk and other unsafe driving particulars at http://www.stopimpaireddriving.org/ and http://www.iihs.org/spanish/default.html

American Academy of Family Physicians
(http://familydoctor.org/online/famdocen/home/common/addictions/alcohol/273.html)

Drinking: It Can Spin Your World Around: Facts for Teens

Alcohol changes the way you act. It makes you let go of the feelings that keep you from doing things you know are risky or dangerous. This can lead you to make bad decisions–like driving when you know you shouldn’t. You might think that it won’t happen to you, but everyone knows someone who has said that and then ended up hurt.

Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration
http://www.family.samhsa.gov/stop/talk.aspx

Start Talking Before They Start Drinking: A Family Guide

You are the most powerful influence on your teen’s behavior. Underage drinking can have serious consequences, so protect your child from the risks associated with drinking by maintaining open communication and expressing a clear, consistent message about alcohol. Building a close relationship with your kid will encourage shared decisions that impact health and well-being. This guide provides facts and practical advice on how to talk with your child about underage drinking. It helps you create household rules to support your values.