JM2010 Contributed Paper: Assessment of a Library Outreach Project to Promote Seniors Use of Health Resources on the Internet
Posted on January 29, 2010 by Amy Chatfield | No Comments
Posted by Debra Schneider, Librarian, Scottsdale Healthcare, Scottsdale, AZ
Presenter: Terry Henner, Library Director, Savitt Medical Library, University of Nevada School of Medicine. Read an abstract of this paper online.
Credit Terry Henner’s mom for complaining. She’d missed out on the latest family pictures and had to hear about her grandson’s trip from a relative. The reason behind her exclusion? Like many other seniors, Terry’s mom was still on the wrong side of the digital divide. It was her lack of comfort with using (or owning) a computer that caused her to miss out on emails that would have filled her in on family news. And those complaints got Terry thinking about what his mom and other seniors were missing without access to the world of information available via the internet.
According to Henner’s research, although many seniors have become more technology savvy, as a group they still lag far behind; more than 65% have not gone on line, and of those who have, many aren’t satisfied or comfortable with their experience. Terry’s goal was to improve that experience.
Backed by a $47K grant from the Nevada trust fund of public health, he launched a two-fold program (outreach training and creation of a health website, Elderhealthnevada.org ). The aim? To increase the comfort level and effectiveness of seniors in using the internet and to raise their awareness of the health information available online. Key to the project’s success was the decision to rely on university students as guides and mentors to group teach and then provide individualized attention/mentoring.
Project participants mirrored some of the same concerns most of us have for health websites-the desire for sites that are reputable and content-rich but cleanly formatted, with consistent navigation bars, straightforward navigation, and without pop-ups or other ads or distractions.
Other concerns seemed more common to this demographic: physical limitations that impacted fine motor skills (re mouse usage), more confusion about terminology and the multiple methods of navigating, the need for adaptations to offset declining visual acuity, and the desire for an authoritative starting point to search from and/or a desire to be told which websites to use vs. an interest in searching for or evaluating the websites on their own.
Ultimately, for training purposes, Henner advocates sensitivity to senior issues, to stay flexible in training, and to keep it fun! Any use of the internet is a good use to develop search skills ( so encourage those searches of the topics of interest – maybe it’s heart-breaking football losses (can we say Vikings?) rather than heart health. The goal is not what they search – it is that they search.)
Posted on 1/29/10
Tags: contributed paper > health information > information > internet > JM2010 > mentoring > online > outreach > senior citizens > training > websites
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