New book offers research, best practices, and tips

New York, NY (June 6, 2008)—For Marge Kars, Health Sciences Library Manager for Bronson Methodist Hospital in Kalamazoo, Michigan, health literacy was literally a matter of life and death. After resolving her personal crisis, she brings special knowledge to her work to help her patrons and others like them across the country, to efficiently locate and accurately decipher medical information.

According to an article in The New York Times, medical experts validate Kars’ experience: studies show individuals with higher literacy levels have lower mortality rates than their less-literate counterparts (“Consequences: Reading Skills Are Tied
to a Longer, Healthier Life,” Eric Nagourney, New York Times, July 31, 2007).

Kars and fellow editors Lynda M. Baker and Feleta Wilson, in conjunction with the Medical Library Association, have produced The Medical Library Association Guide to Health Literacy. To be published by Neal-Schuman Publishers on July 15, 2008, this comprehensive resource will help medical, hospital, public, and health library personnel to serve the health needs of their clientele better.

For example, the book states that persons with low literacy skills often have difficulty interpreting prescription information or medical appointment details.

“These same individuals have a higher incidence of disease, risk higher use of the emergency room, have longer hospital stays with higher hospital admission rates, and suffer medication errors because they cannot read or understand a prescription label,” says Kars.

With contributions from professionals spanning all library environments, as well as academic researchers, the Guide to Health Literacy covers in detail each of four major health literacy areas: essential issues surrounding health literacy; implications of the influence of culture, ethnicity, special needs, and age in health; best practices for public and hospital library consumer health programs and services; and proven ways libraries can initiate their own and partner with other organizations’ health
literacy programs.

Kars includes a review of existing health literacy literature, including characteristics of low health literacy, reasons for concern, and proposed solutions. With special sections focused on the disabled, the elderly, and teens, the Guide to Health Literacy offers a multitude of tips for answering the needs of various demographic groups.

Librarians will also find step-by-step instructions for conducting and following up on health reference interviews, along with sections addressing the special needs of local public libraries and in-hospital library services. The guide concludes by offering ways to become involved in the health literacy movement, including how to form and fund literacy collaborations.

Readers will find case studies that illustrate ways to partner with health care providers and other organizations to create and fund health literacy programming in their community.

“After reading this guide, librarians should be better able to understand the issues that comprise health literacy, learning how to help others become health literate and how to become change agents within their organizations,” says Kars.

The Medical Library Association Guide to Health Literacy
ISBN 978-1-55570-625-8.
2008. 6 x 9. 250 pp. $75.00.

About the Editors
Marge Kars, MSLS, is manager of the Health Sciences Library and Bronson HealthAnswers, a consumer health information center at Bronson Methodist Hospital in Kalamazoo, Michigan. She chairs Bronson’s health literacy initiative, working with other hospital departments to train staff on health literacy issues as well as rewriting patient information in an easy to read format. She is a literacy volunteer in Kalamazoo, co-chairing Ready to Read, an emergent literacy collaboration, and literacy programs at the Kalamazoo Juvenile Home.

Lynda M. Baker, Ph.D., is an Associate Professor in the Library and Information Science Program at Wayne State University in Detroit and teaches courses on health sciences librarianship, consumer health, advanced reference, and research methods. She was the principal author of the book Consumer Health Information for Public Librarians and has published a number of articles on readability of consumer health materials. Her main research focus concerns health information needs and seeking-behaviors.

Feleta L. Wilson, PhD., RN, is an Associate Professor in the College of Nursing at Wayne State University. Over the past 16 years, Dr. Wilson has developed a program of research on patient education and patient health literacy. She has published numerous articles and serves as Principal Investigator on several research grants from institutions including the National Institutes of Health, National Cancer Institute, National Institute on Aging, and National Institute for NursingResearch.

About Neal-Schuman Publishers and the Medical Library Association
Neal-Schuman Publishers is the leading provider of library management, Internet, and information technology resources, and is the Medical Library Association’s co-publisher. Founded in 1976, Neal-Schuman Publishers is based in New York City with offices in London, UK.

For More Information
Contact Yelena Perlin
(yelena@neal-schuman.com)