Through their mission to provide access to knowledge, libraries play an important role in health literacy. Wide and open access to health information is a prerequisite for being able to understand and use that information, and libraries often advocate for and provide access to these resources. Libraries also function as trusted social spaces where people can discuss and inquire about information related to health.[1] By helping people access and understand reliable, high-quality health information, librarians can contribute to improving people’s health literacy.[2]
Public libraries have increasingly recognized that they can play a role in health literacy and related initiatives have included running education programs, fostering partnerships with health organizations, and using outreach efforts.[2] Other health literacy efforts by public libraries include computer training for older adults and translating health information for and facilitating potentially different cultural attitudes of immigrant populations. Library outreach often addresses underrepresented or vulnerable groups who have a higher risk of certain diseases and a lower general level of health literacy.[2]
Various medical libraries have made an effort to introduce health literacy programs by attempting to define the concept to include the librarian's role as including a set of abilities needed to recognize a health information need, identify likely information sources and use them to retrieve relevant information, and assess the quality of the information and its applicability to a specific health situation.[2] Medical libraries located in healthcare or higher education settings work with healthcare professionals and medical students to raise their awareness of the barriers of health literacy faced by their patients. Medical librarians can also train professionals in communication strategies they might require such as active listening and the use of plain language.[2] Health librarians can also support medical students and people participating in continuing professional development in tasks that require information literacy skills, such as retrieving biomedical literature and practicing evidence-based medicine.[3][4]
The Network of the National Library of Medicine (NNLM) twice yearly hosts the #citeNLM Wikipedia Edit-a-thon initiative to "improve the credibility and content of medical and health-related articles on Wikipedia by adding citations and information from National Library of Medicine (NLM) sources."[5]
