Multnomah County Library Community Health Outreach Award

The Multnomah County Library in Portland, Oregon received a Community Health Outreach Award from the NNLM PNR to pilot the use of health information kiosks, aimed at people who are experiencing houselessness in Multnomah County. Here is a report of their project from Steph Miller, Programming Librarian — Technology and Workforce Development. Increasing Access to Credible Health Information for Public Library Patrons Experiencing Houselessness People who are experiencing houselessness come to public libraries to find information and to use the internet. According to local studies in Multnomah County, Oregon, 57 percent of the population experiencing houselessness also self-identify as having a “disabling condition,” defined as a mental health condition, substance abuse, developmental disability, HIV/AIDS, or another chronic health condition. Experiencing homelessness can make finding health information and communicating with healthcare providers difficult. With the goal of facilitating access to authoritative health information resources and communication between patients and providers, Multnomah County Library installed health information iPad kiosks at two locations in and near downtown Portland, with the input and support of the Multnomah County Health Department. The library made these kiosks available to library patrons from September 2017 to April 2018. They highlighted a curated list of authoritative online health resources and the online health portal, MyCha...
Source: Dragonfly - Category: Databases & Libraries Authors: Tags: Funding News from Network Members Public Libraries Source Type: news