 | The 131st Annual Meeting (November 15-19, 2003) of APHA |
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| The 131st Annual Meeting (November 15-19, 2003) of APHA |
Cynthia Love, MLS, Specialized Information Services, National Library of Medicine, 6707 Democracy Blvd, Suite 510, Bethesda, MD 20892, 301-496-5306, cindy_love@nlm.nih.gov and Gale Dutcher, MLS, MS, Specialized Information Services Division, Office of Outreach and Special Populations, National Library of Medicine, 6707 Democracy Blvd., Suite 510, Room 518, Bethesda, MD 20892.
Tox Town (http://toxtown.nlm.nih.gov) is a friendly, pictorial interface in the form of an image of “Hometown, USA” that helps people navigate complex information about potential hazards in their environment. Hometowns include a small town, a city, and a farm setting. Tox Town indicates everyday locations where one might find toxic chemicals, non-technical descriptions of those chemicals, and links to authoritative information on the Internet on how the environment can impact human health. The site uses color, graphics, sounds and animation to add interest to learning about connections among chemicals, the environment, and the public’s health. The links on Tox Town are carefully selected and evaluated and come primarily from the National Library of Medicine (NLM) and other government agencies. One of the major sources of information is NLM’s MEDLINEplus, which has over 600 health topics, including environmental health, for consumers and health professionals. Although the target audience for Tox Town is the concerned public and high school and college students and their instructors, many public health professionals will find Tox Town useful in their work. Tox Town continues to evolve with input from users and from formal evaluations including focus groups and usability testing.
Learning Objectives:
Keywords: Environmental Health, Information Databases
Related Web page: toxtown.nlm.nih.gov
Presenting author's disclosure statement:
Organization/institution whose products or services will be discussed: National Library of Medicine
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.