2. Patricia Devine  Medical Librarian  NN/LM, PNR  Serve 5 states: ▪ Alaska, Idaho, Montana, Oregon, and Washington

3.  Participants  Where do you work?  What population do you serve?

4.  Health Literacy – what is it and why is it important?  Why go to the Internet?  Evaluating online information  Reliable web sites  Hands-on exercises

5.  Having the capacity to: the basic health information needed to make appropriate health decisions. obtain process understand Health.gov

6. The ability of individuals to read understand act upon health-related information. New York City Mayor’s Office

7.  Health Literacy Affects People’s Ability to:  Navigate the healthcare system  Share personal information  Take good care of themselves and manage chronic conditions  Understand instructions

8.  Poor health literacy is more likely to affect a person’s health than  Age  Income  Employment status  Education level  Race or ethnicity

9.  Patients with inadequate health literacy:  Have less health-related knowledge  Receive less preventive care  Have poorer control of their chronic illnesses  Are hospitalized more frequently

10.  Understand issues surrounding health information-seeking  Guide to quality information  Teach to evaluate information  Help with patient-provider interactions

11.  Who looks for health information online? 87% of U.S. Adults use the Internet, and 72% of Internet users looked for health information online in the past year. Pew Research Internet Project, 2014

12.  35% of U.S. Adults have gone online to figure out what medical condition they or someone else might have.  8 in 10 online health inquiries start at a search engine.  26% of Internet users seeking health information say they have been asked to pay for access. Pew Research Center’s Internet & American Life Project, 2013

13.  Web sites are easier to update than print materials  Computers available at community centers and libraries  Expensive to buy and replace medical books

14.  Who manages this information?  Who is paying for the project?  What is the source of the information?  How is the information reviewed?  How current is the information?

16.  Does the site make claims that seem “too good to be true”?  Are quick, miracle cures promised?  Are there other web sites with the same information?  Don’t be fooled by lists of links – no endorsement can be implied from a shared link

22.  Types of questions :  Definition of a condition  Who is at risk? Am I at risk?  What causes it?  Can I prevent it?

23.  More questions you can ask :  What are the symptoms?  What are the treatments?  How do you diagnose it?  What’s the latest research?

24. Patricia Devine devine@uw.edu