Recorded presentation

William Spears, PhD, San Antonio Regional Campus, University of Texas School of Public Health, 7703 Floyd Curl Drive, Mail Code 7976, San Antonio, TX 78284, 210.567.5930, SpearsB@uthscsa.edu and Helena Von Ville, UTHSC-Houston School of Public Health, PO Box 20186, Houston, TX 77225.

The Community Health Assessment Resources for Texas (CHART) was based on two goals: 1) to provide web-based census tract level birth, death, and population data free of charge to users and 2) to offer classes to potential users to help them learn how to find health information on the Internet and uses of the data when it is located.

CHART was created through a collaboration between two types of information specialists: public health informatics specialists and librarians. The public health informatics specialists provided knowledge about important community health indicators and how to make data available on the Internet. Librarians are highly skilled searchers, familiar with locating broad types of information in a variety of resources, whether it be online through the Internet or a licensed database or in a book or journal. The CHART strategy brings together public health professionals and librarians in a hands-on workshop environment, giving both the public health professionals and the librarians opportunities to network and develop their own collaborations. This strategy also allows the public health professionals an opportunity to view librarians as critical partners who can simplify the information seeking process. Participating librarians are immersed in the jargon of public health as they learn more about the needs of the community practitioners. Participants in the project hear from both a public health informatics professional and a librarian who demonstrate ways to access and use a GIS-based health statistics resources as well as a Web-based clearinghouse for Texas health data.

Learning Objectives: At the end of the session the participant will be able to

• Identify new partners in sharing health information.
• Will recongnize a new relationship between public health professionals and librarians
• Will be able to identify at least 2 new sources of health information.

Keywords: Community Collaboration, Data/Surveillance

Related Web page: www.sph.uth.tmc.edu/admaps/champs/healthinformatics.html

Presenting author's disclosure statement:
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.

Recorded presentation