ChatVCU Libraries projects provide trusted public health information
April 7, 2014Information is power when it comes to managing your health and understanding public health topics. The first week of April is National Public Health Week, organized by the American Public Health Association. In Central Virginia, two marquee health outreach projects, led by librarians at Tompkins-McCaw Library for the Health Sciences, provide practitioners and consumers with vast, librarian-vetted materials.
- The Common Wealth of Public Health & Primary Care Information website has a wealth of free, publicly-available information for healthcare providers. The free resources collected here can be used for individual research, clinical practice, interdisciplinary training, keeping abreast with public health issues and statistics as well as continuing education. The guide provides links to resources that are openly available without subscription. The site was updated and redesigned in 2013.
This project reflects the NIH Public Access Policy and the National Library of Medicine's many open access information resources. This website was produced through a continuing collaborative partnership between the VCU Libraries and Virginia's Capital and Rappahannock Area Health Education Center programs. This project has been funded in whole or in part with Federal funds from the National Library of Medicine, National Institutes of Health, Department of Health and Human Services, under Contract No. HHS-N-276-2011-00004-C with the University of Maryland Baltimore.
- The Community Health Education Center in the Gateway Building of the VCU Medical Center, is one of a very few similar community heath education centers that is tied not only to a top-tier academic medical library–the nearby Tompkins-McCaw Library for the Health Sciences–but also to a major university medical center. CHEC opened in 2000 and continually updates its materials.
CHEC serves patients, their families and professionals within the health care community who refer patients to the resources at CHEC. Some 1,300 people visit the center monthly to seek information about health and wellness. Services are free. It is a partnership among MCV Hospitals Auxiliary, VCU Health System and VCU Libraries. It offers an array of health guides online to supplement materials available in the consumer health library. How to get health information online from CHEC.
In support of this week of focus, a VCU Libraries social media campaign [A Healthy You] will showcase some of these free and available online resources prepared by librarians and health care experts.