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���� �����������������������Public librarians as �Health partners : �Evidence of Needs and Opportunities from a State-Wide Survey

Noah Lenstra, PhD, Assistant Professor of Library & Information Science

Joanna Roberts, Graduate Research Assistant

University of North Carolina at Greensboro

​

Direct inquiries to lenstra@uncg.edu

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Roadmap for today

  1. Public Libraries & Health: Brief history of an idea
  2. Public librarians as health partners in the present
  3. Current survey: Design and Methods
  4. Results:
    1. Library-based health services
    2. Perceived needs and specific desires
    3. Relationships and coalitions involving library workforce
  5. Implications: A theory of change model

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Who are you?

  1. This is an unprecedented opportunity for health and library people to get together!
  2. Who are you! Let’s do some networking

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Setting the stage

  • Today is National Library Outreach Day!
  • Part of National Library Week
  • This week is ALSO National Public Health Week

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Hidden history of health-library partnerships

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How do public librarians help?

  1. Transformative potential of reading
  2. Useful nature of information
  3. Community building capacity of public space

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Coming into national view about 10 years ago

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Coming into national view about 10 years ago

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Momentum continues in APHA’s �Fourth most read story of 2018

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Robust infrastructure emerging around social work in the library – ��UNC – Charlotte’s Beth Wahler leading the way!

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Hot topics today

  • Telehealth
  • COVID-19 services
  • Social Workers
  • Food security
  • Health & Misinformation

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My goals as a researcher

Step back from trending topics �to fundamentally understand what it means for public libraries and public librarians �to be part of community health

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Why is this important?

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Community Health and Wellness: Small and Rural Library Practices, Perspectives, and Programs

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Geographic distribution of the research team, advisory board,

and public libraries participating in the research

Graphic Credit: Ginny Schneider, Abbie Rose, Rebecca Floyd

Ellen L. Rubenstein & Susan K. Burke

Noah Lenstra

Christine D’Arpa

This project was made possible in part by the Institute of Museum and Library Services, lg-18-19-0015-19

HEAL (Healthy Eating and Active Living) at the Library via Co-Developed Programming

​

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Geographic distribution of case study communities

Noah Lenstra, Early Career Grant

This project was made possible in part by the Institute of Museum and Library Services, RE-246336-OLS-20

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What we found in previous studies

Health partner evolution in framing public libraries

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  • Stage 1: Library => Book Repository
  • Stage 2: Library => Trusted Resource �(Always there, people turn to them, stable, trusted:�Space to use for food distribution, telehealth, social worker access, etc.)
  • Stage 3: Librarian => Partner �(We work together to figure out what to do = Collective Impact)

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  • Evolution is the key word! Partnerships snowball and evolve over time

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How do things look in South Carolina?

Not bad! Some research out of USC on this topic:

  • Draper, C. L. (2021). Exploring the Feasibility of Partnerships between Public Libraries and the SNAP-Ed Program. �Public Library Quarterly, 1-17.
  • Whitt, O. (2020). Examining the Organizational Capacity of Public Libraries That Offer Obesity Prevention Programs �(Doctoral dissertation, University of South Carolina).
  • Tu-Keefner, F., Liu, J., Hartnett, E., & Hastings, S. K. (2017). Health information services and technology access during and after a disaster: Lessons learned by public librarians in South Carolina. Journal of Consumer Health on the Internet, 21(1), 26-39.

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Innovation in urban South Carolina

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2022 additions to SC CRPH cohort

  • Marlboro County: Marion Wright Edelman Library Community Health Hub
  • Expanding Access to Healthcare in Oconee County
  • Better health – Abbeville
  • Collaborating to Address Critical Needs in Calhoun County

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SC Public Libraries: Needs and Opportunities

  • In partnership with State Library of South Carolina, in September 2021 we surveyed public library workers about their health partnerships, and needs related to supporting community health
  • Respondents occupied a variety of roles within public libraries, including directors, youth services librarians, and outreach librarians
  • Goal: Build up a more in-depth understanding how what South Carolina’s public librarians need to better support health
  • Survey instrument developed based on similar, past studies of topic

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Sample

  • 123 complete responses, �19 partial responses
  • Distribution of respondents aligned with distribution of public libraries across the state
  • Snowball sampling technique = Snapshot at moment in time (September 2021)

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Findings: Health Services at Libraries

  • More than 60% said their libraries supported access to COVID-related services, including 42% who offered immunization clinics for COVID-19, and �29% who offered COVID-19 testing services.
  • Many host a wide array of services that support health
  • More than 40% report they have hosted everything from food drives to fitness classes, farmers’ markets, summer meals, health fairs, cooking classes, and blood drives, among other services offered to support health

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Health   services

Library Staff

Locating and evaluating free health information online

51%

Using subscription health database(s)

42%

Food drives

40%

Identifying or using local health resources

40%

Understanding specific health topics

36%

Offering nutrition classes

34%

Offering fitness classes

34%

Summer meals

31%

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Health   services

By Partners

Summer meals

47%

Blood drives

45%

Food drives

40%

Health fairs

37%

Immunization clinics, specifically for COVID19

36%

Offering nutrition classes

36%

Immunization clinics, in general (e.g. for vaccinations)

36%

Farmer's Markets

33%

Other ways of distributing free food (community fridge, food boxes)

33%

Health screening services: Blood pressure

31%

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Findings: Evaluation a key challenge

  • An open-ended question asked respondents:

“How, if at all, has your library evaluated the health outcomes of library services or programs?”

  • The most common response was that health outcomes were not evaluated, beyond monitoring numbers of individuals
  • Example: “We don't really have a way to track this info. We did weight loss programs, but the partner tracked progress and no long-term info available. We have done nutrition and health programs with our hospital targeting diabetes and heart disease, distributed food during 2020, have had exercise programs for seniors, walking programs, etc. We have sponsored CPR training courses for the public.”

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Findings: Perceived needs vs. specific desires

  • Survey asked: “If your library could have any health-related professionals available to the public, about how often do you think the services of such individual(s) would be needed at your library?”
  • Over 90% of respondents said there �was a need for outside help at their libraries

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Findings: Perceived needs vs. specific desires

Health Liaison

Interested –

Not Offered

Offered

Not interested

Social workers

51%

23%

26%

Nurses

51%

12%

37%

Health educator

48%

27%

25%

Medical students

48%

4%

48%

Community health workers

47%

24%

29%

Social work students

43%

13%

44%

AmeriCorps or other volunteers

39%

21%

40%

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Findings: Perceived needs vs. specific desires

In an open-ended response, one librarian wrote

​

“We do not have enough staff and really cannot handle any more programs.

Even when partnering with others, it takes staff time, and we just cannot do it anymore due to not enough staff.”

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Findings: Perceived needs vs. specific desires

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Findings: Needs and opportunities

  • Focusing specifically on telehealth, a greater proportion of librarians said they were “not interested” than those who said they were interested
    • 35% interested
    • 40% not interested
    • 25% already supporting telehealth access
  • Greater interest in bringing in a health worker/liaison
  • Social Worker: �51% interested, 26% not interested, 23% offering

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Findings: Relationships, Coalitions, & SDoH

  • More than 50% reported close relationships with formal and out-of-school-time educational institutions, non-profits, and parks & recreation

​

  • Less than 50% reported close relationships with any organization in the health sector.

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Findings: Relationships, Coalitions, & SDoH

Department/Institution

Very close or �somewhat close

Not very close

K-12 Schools

89%

11%

…

 

 

Health department

44%

56%

Hospital or healthcare system(s)

41%

59%

Health coalition or alliances

41%

59%

SNAP-Ed implementing agency

41%

59%

Department of Justice / Department of Corrections

31%

69%

WIC Clinics

29%

71%

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Findings: Relationships, Coalitions, & SDoH

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Findings: Rural / Urban differences

  • Rural librarians were those least likely to have had formal health partnerships: �50% report no partners in programmatic or funded health initiatives.
  • Rural librarians those most interested in supporting health: Looking for opportunities
  • For example: Most rural librarians are interested in offering mental health first aid trainings.
  • Most urban librarians have already offered these trainings.

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Findings: Needs and opportunities

  • Only 10% reported no barriers to supporting health
  • About 1/3 of respondents reported a library “Health Champion”
  • Most think individuals in their communities look to the library as a safe and trusted space, including to potentially access both health literacy and health services
  • Most see health equity as a priority for their libraries
  • Only 10% say a barrier is that health is not perceived to be within the mission of the public library

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Discussion: Theory of Change Model

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Discussion: Library leaders as health leaders

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Discussion

  • What are your questions?
  • Where should we go from here?
  • What has been your experience talking about health and public librarianship?

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  • White Paper and anonymized data-set will be published open access online this Spring

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  • Email to get project updates: lenstra@uncg.edu

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  • Continue the conversation!

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