Mary's Center for Maternal and Child Health addresses the overwhelming demand for health services to Latino residents in the District of Columbia. Mary's Center provides them with reproductive, perinatal, and pediatric health services in a bilingual, family oriented, and culturally sensitive environment. In addition, Mary's Center links these families to community services, helping them gain greater awareness of the educational, housing and employment resources available to them.
In 2000, Mary's Center became a member of the NLM-funded Partners for Health Information project and received 2 computers, database access, and training for patients and workers in using health information web sites and databases. The staff at Mary's Center maximized these resources by developing 3 models for providing access to health information resources. (1) Using an empowerment model of health education, the Teen Clinic trains teen peer educators to present health information to their classmates. This year, the teens learned how to access and evaluate Internet based databases and web resources to inform their presentations. (2) The Prenatal Clinic health educator incorporates the web into visits with her patients by using Spanish language, graphic-rich web sites to demonstrate fetal development and childbirth. (3) The clinic placed its second computer in the waiting room to encourage patients to conduct independent research. In addition, public health students and librarians visit during clinic hours to instruct visitors how to navigate the web and identify useful information resources. An evaluation based on user satisfaction and effects on patient decisions will be reported.
See www.gwu.edu/~partnersLearning Objectives: At the conclusion of the session, learner will be able to: 1. Describe 3 models for presenting the Internet to patients at a neighborhood health clinic. 2. Identify the health information needs and skills of one group of Latino teen peer educators. 3. Assess the barriers to using Internet resources by Latino patients in one health clinic.
Keywords: Latinos, Internet
Presenting author's disclosure statement:
Organization/institution whose products or services will be discussed: National Library of Medicine; George Washington University
I do not have any significant financial interest/arrangement or affiliation with any organization/institution whose products or services are being discussed in this session.