Roles and Responsibilities of Libraries in Increasing Consumer Health Literacy and Reducing Health Disparities: (47 Advances in Librarianship)

The rampant health injustices that occur daily throughout the world are exacerbated by health information injustice – something which libraries and librarians play an instrumental role in addressing. This volume brings together librarians, LIS students, educators, and researchers, to discuss the many ways that information professionals and libraries serve as agents of securing health information justice.  Kicking off with an introductory chapter which covers the central concepts of health information injustice, the following chapters focus on the roles of libraries and librarians in improving consumer health literacy and reducing health disparities in their communities. In the final chapter, the editors draw on the authors’ work to highlight the ways in which libraries and librarians are moving us closer to health justice, and they also discuss how the COVID-19 pandemic is both illuminating and intensifying health disparities, reinforcing the need for libraries and librarians to continue their important roles as agents of health information justice to ensure the physical and intellectual accessibility of information for all.

Table of Contents:
Chapter 1. Introduction: Libraries and Librarians as Agents of Health Information Justice; Beth St. Jean, Paul T. Jaeger, Gagan Jindal and Yuting LiaoPublic Libraries/Healthy Communities Chapter 2. Consumer Health Literacy, the National Library of Medicine, and the Public Library: Bridging the Gaps; Catherine Arnott Smith, Alla Keselman, Amanda J. Wilson and M. Nichelle Midón Chapter 3. Growing Food at and through the Local Library: An Exploratory Study of an Emerging Role; Christine D’Arpa, Noah Lenstra and Ellen Rubenstein Chapter 4. Opioid Consumer Health Information Literacies in Alabama’s Public Libraries: An Exploratory Website Content Analysis; Bharat Mehra and Baheya S. Jaber  Chapter 5. Applying a Health Justice Framework to Examine Health and Social Justice in LIS Course Offerings; Emily Vardell and Deborah H. Charbonneau  Health Information Assessment Chapter 6. Consumer Health Information Literacy and Information Behavior of Young Adults; Joan C. Bartlett Chapter 7. Asking Good Questions: Developing Skilled Health Information Consumers; Heather Brodie Perry  Overcoming Barriers to Health Information Access Chapter 8. Making Health Information Accessible for All: The Impact of Universal Design in Public Libraries; Gerd Berget Chapter 9. Sexual Education is a Human Right: Information Inequities of K-12 Sexual Education and Librarians’ Roles in Supporting Adolescents’ Sexual Health Literacy; Karina Kletscher Serving Disadvantaged Populations Chapter 10. Public Libraries Expanding Health Literacy for Drug Court Participants; Anne M. Dannerbeck Janku, Jenny Bossaller, Denice Adkins and Rachel Thudium Chapter 11. Increasing Health Literacy in Rural Appalachia Tennessee through Outreach, Communication, and Education: How Libraries Can Reduce Health Disparities in their Communities; Kelsey Leonard Grabeel Chapter 12. The Health of a Musician: Documenting and Addressing Health Disparities among Performing Musicians; Loriene Roy Health Information as a Communal Asset Chapter 13. (Im)patient Narratives: Peer-to-Peer Health Information Transfer in the LGBTQ+ Community via Zines from the Queer Zine Archive Project (QZAP); Joyce M. Latham and Sarah Cooke Chapter 14. “When it’s Time to Come Together, We Come Together”: Reconceptualizing Theories of Self-efficacy for Health Information Practices within LGBTQIA+ Communities; A. Nick Vera, Travis L. Wagner and Vanessa L. Kitzie Conclusion Chapter 15. Libraries and Librarians as Agents of Health Information Justice: Concluding Thoughts; Beth St. Jean, Gagan Jindal, Paul T. Jaeger, Yuting Liao and Beth Barnett

About the Author :
Beth St. Jean is an Associate Professor in the College of Information Studies, Associate Director of the Information Policy & Access Center (iPAC), and an affiliate faculty member of the Horowitz Center for Health Literacy, at the University of Maryland, USA. Gagan Jindal is a Qualitative User Experience Researcher at Facebook, Inc. She recently received her PhD from the University of Maryland College of Information Studies. Yuting Liao is a PhD candidate in the University of Maryland College of Information Studies. Paul T. Jaeger is Professor and Diversity and Inclusion Officer at the College of Information Studies and Co-Director of iPAC at the University of Maryland, USA.