Visitors to the second floor Reference area of the C.H. Booth Library will be seeing a brand new resource that is aimed at promoting public health and educating patrons about a new research program on precision medicine.

This project is part of the “Healthy Community” movement in Newtown. As an agent of community cooperation and collaboration, the library’s All of Us Newtown project is promoting public education about the All of Us Research Program and health information literacy using resources available from the National Institutes of Health (NIH).

The primary goal of this project is to assist in the delivery of improved health information to residents, focusing primarily on women, youth, and seniors and their caregivers. According to Library Director Douglas Lord, the new resource also provides patrons hand-held tablets to aid in their research.

Grant funds from the National Network of Libraries of Medicine (NNLM) are enabling the establishment of the health information center.

“Ninety-nine out of a hundred people have probably never heard of the National Network of Libraries of Medicine, but they are a great resource,” he said. “They have hundreds of online databases, and this kiosk features just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to their library of public health literature. It’s the most authoritative public health info you can get on the planet — fully vetted and all legitimate.”

Mr Lord said he envisions patients coming back from a doctor visit and visiting the NNLM to perform deeper research.

“Is it going to make people healthier? I hope so. But it’s really about medical literacy,” he said. “There is so much misinformation and nonsense out there, and it’s easy to freak people out.”

Outreach for this new initiative will be promoted between the library and various community groups in and outside of Newtown to teach the public and health professionals about health information and raise health literacy. This effort will initially target 30 total outreach events and the professionals and individual consumers who attend them.

Patrons at the library will be served on an as-needed basis and with scheduled one-on-one appointments and small group sessions. Each of the community groups was selected in part because they host or offer health and wellness programs to their constituents and have a relationship with the library.

The staff at the library and those deployed with the center will provide information from the National Library of Medicine (NLM) medical databases on such topical health issues that have been shown to be important to the community such as diet, exercise, and mental health.

The project’s primary aims are to broaden access to and awareness of health information resources, with an emphasis on those resources related to the All of Us Research Program and resources provided by the NLM, and to increase health literacy for the general public, teachers, and member organizations involved in the Newtown Healthy Community Initiative spearheaded by Newtown’s Center for Support and Wellness (CSW).

Mr Lord said the goals of this project are to strengthen existing and build new partnerships between community organizations, including the C.H. Booth Library and dozens of volunteer organizations and community- and faith-based organizations; focus on underserved health communities like older adults and underrepresented populations (women, seniors, children); educate the public about personalized medicine; and raise awareness of the All of Us Research Program.

“This all came about because of something called precision medicine,” Mr Lord said. “We may both have high triglycerides, but our genetic profiles and cultural backgrounds are very different. So this All of Us effort is trying to get one million people to provide their genetic markers. The eventual hope is this information will help create a standard government database that will provide information to researchers so they can target the most successful treatments based on what has been most successful for others with similar DNA profiles.”

To fulfill requirements of the grant, the library plans to conduct 30 instructional outreach visits to 15 different partner agencies/stakeholders. At the beginning and end of these sessions, brief print surveys will be distributed concerning participant knowledge of NLM resources and the national All of Us project.

Presenters at these community gatherings will collect e-mail addresses; two to four weeks post-session, participants will be sent a second survey in an attempt to determine the frequency and extent to which resources were used and to what effect. Library staff members and partners will also provide instructional training sessions focusing on NLM resources and the national All of Us for at least 100 consumers in one-on-one or small-group settings and use similar pre- and post-session surveying.

The library is also utilizing its relationship with The Newtown Bee. Readers will see ongoing promotion of this initiative in the library’s weekly column, including any upcoming All of Us Newtown events, and the project plans to place National Network of Libraries of Medicine (NNLM) and Booth-branded advertising in the newspaper promoting the initiative and related events.