“Applying what we know already will have a bigger impact on health and disease than any drug or technology likely to be introduced in the next decade.” (Health Information for All 2015 campaign)
According to the World Health Organisation, every day in 2008 about 1,000 women died due to complications in pregnancy, during birth or because of unsafe abortions. Out of that 1,000, 570 lived in sub-Saharan Africa. And UNICEF report that the highest rates of child mortality continue to be found here too, with 1 in 8 children dying before their fifth birthday-nearly 20 times the average for developed regions. Yet two-thirds of child and maternal deaths could be avoided, if healthcare providers had access to simple, inexpensive interventions, and the knowledge to use them correctly.
In Africa, there is a huge demand for medical and health books to provide information that health workers need. As an African nurse put it recently: “I have been working for more than twenty years as a public health nurse, routinely educating mothers on prevailing health problems. I’m still using the same knowledge to educate mothers on how to feed their babies. I feel like I’m not knowledgeable enough to give my clients updates, especially in this time of AIDS.”
To address the information gap, Book Aid International has been delivering an innovative three-year project designed to improve access to health information by establishing health sections in public libraries in collaboration with the Kenya National Library Service (KNLS). Funded by the Elsevier Foundation’s Innovative Libraries in Developing Countries programme, the project aims to give health workers, ranging from hospital doctors to traditional healers, access to books and information to improve the care and advice they give.
Each year the project works with five public libraries, developing the skills of their librarians to assess the information needs of healthcare workers and to identify and provide resources for the libraries to meet those needs. Libraries involved in the project have access to the internet and appropriate books are provided by Book Aid International.
The project was launched last year and the libraries involved have reported notable changes to the way they provide information for health care workers, and significant increases in the numbers using their services. As well as books, librarians have been trained to assess online health information, covering topical issues like breastfeeding, malaria, water sanitation and HIV/AIDS, and to provide it in accessible formats to health care workers through their local library.
Last month, the second year of the project was launched with a four day workshop involving 15 librarians from ten public libraries (five of which had participated in the first year of the project) and six health workers. Led by James Kimani, Book Aid International’s newly appointed representative in East Africa, the workshop built on the training and experience in the first year by involving librarians from the first cohort as well as health workers to focus on helping librarians develop skills to assess the information needs of primary health care providers and identify and provide resources to meet those needs in public libraries.
Opening the workshop, KNLS Director, Richard Atuti, emphasised the importance of the programme to the library service. He welcomed the interaction with health workers to meet the challenges for librarians to meet sector based information needs. KNLS aims to provide innovative services for health workers and it was, said Mr Atuti, “no longer business as usual, but business unusual”.
Participants were exposed to a wide range of health information resources in electronic and print formats. The librarians were trained to use the internet to identify and access reliable materials. They also worked on ways to promote the health information services they could offer to health workers. After some initial doubts on both sides, both the health workers and librarians were excited by collaborating in developing the sections. As one participant put it “we all have something in common that we can share despite the difference in profession”.
Another key element of the workshop was the involvement of three KNLS staff with the aim of building up a pool of trainers who can extend the programme to other libraries at the end of the project. Dawn Makena, who has been involved in both workshops, both as a facilitator and administrator, was joined by two librarians who had attended the first workshop, Farida Mohamed and Miriam Mwangi, who had also been involved in follow up monitoring and training in 2010.
James Kimani said that he was delighted with the workshop. “We had learned a lot from the first year and the enthusiasm of librarians and health workers was amazing. It was also great to work with such committed colleagues from KNLS and to get such enthusiastic support from the Director”. This is shaping up to be one of Book Aid International’s most successful projects.
Background
Book Aid International provided over 27,500 medical and health books to our partner organisations in sub-Saharan Africa in 2010. There is an enormous demand for resources and for training to make resources more accessible. We are a supporting organisation of the Health Information for All by 2015 campaign (HIFA). Launched in October 2006 by the Global Healthcare Information Network, HIFA 2015 focuses particularly on the information needs of healthcare providers in developing countries. Already supplying medical books to Kenya National Library Service, many of them donated by Elsevier Health Sciences division, we have a keen interest in ensuring that books are effectively used and that staff are given the opportunity to develop skills to make the content more accessible.
Kenya National Library Service (KNLS) is a strong, effective and dynamic organisation, with 54 branches located across the country and a range of outreach projects such as camel mobile libraries in nomadic regions. KNLS is Book Aid International’s main partner in Kenya. The library service acquires a wide range of medical and healthcare books every year and is well positioned to play a key role in provision of health information to primary healthcare practitioners. It is keen to improve its health information service and has, for example, set up HIV and AIDS information corners in many libraries. KNLS will be the main partner for this project, providing the human resources and libraries where the work will take place. KNLS staff will attend workshops and run the project at a local level, bringing together relevant healthcare professionals and working with them on needs assessment and resource production. http://www.knls.ke/
For more information contact:
Clive Nettleton
Director
Book Aid International
+44 (0)20 7733 3577
