Collaboration addresses information and education needs of an urban public health workforce*

Abstract

Addressing the health information needs of diverse, multiethnic, and multilingual communities can be both a challenge and an opportunity for libraries. The Vera P. Shiffman Medical Library at Wayne State University in Detroit, Michigan, is the only academic medical library in the Detroit area open to the public. The library provides services to many communities in southeastern Michigan. The diverse geographic area served by the library includes the nation's highest concentration of Arab Americans [1]. A review of the literature reveals that limited research has addressed how libraries can meet the health information needs of this target community [2]. An understanding of the health information needs of Arab Americans in Michigan, and in the United States, will be increasingly important for libraries responsible for providing library services for and developing resources to meet the needs of Arab American health consumers and to improve the quality of information available to health professionals serving these communities. Chief among the concerns of the library was to increase the relevance and usability of information for health professionals providing health-related services to local Arab, Muslim, and Chaldean American communities in Michigan. A key strategy of this initiative was to establish relationships with organizations that served this target population. The Urban Health Partners program, begun in 2003 and continuing through the present, was launched by establishing partnerships with a health department and a community-based organization serving these communities. The program described here is an important building block for achieving a greater understanding of how information is needed and used in different settings and by different groups of people.