Westlake Porter Public Library’s Virtual Health Fair is September 20-26
According to a 2019 Becker’s Hospital Review article Google received over 1 billion health related questions a day, which amounts to over 70,000 per minute. Clearly people are interested in their health and the health of loved ones. How do you know if what you are reading is accurate or even true? Is the website the information coming from run by doctors and medical professionals or is it run by people with an interest in selling you a cure? With so much information out there and freely available it can be difficult to know who to trust.
At the Westlake Porter Public Library we have access to many health databases full of information you can trust and created by medical professionals. Many of these databases are continually updated as new information becomes available. While the databases can be very helpful they should never be a substitute for advice and care from your own physician.
Health Information Translations
Getting proper care and information to foreign language speakers can be difficult. With that in mind four regional healthcare systems, including The Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center and the Mount Carmel Medical Center, teamed up to create the Health Information Translation database. Documents are available on a variety of topics and in languages commonly spoken among immigrant groups within Ohio. Articles are thoroughly researched and vetted by health experts. They are checked for their ease of reading and then translated by experienced translators. The articles are updated when new information becomes available or at least every four years. This is a great resource to help get high quality, trustworthy health information into the hands of non-English speaking people residing in the area.
Consumer Health Complete
Deciphering the meaning of some health information can be intimidating and confusing, especially when it is written for doctors and nurses. In the Consumer Health Complete database things are written in an accessible, but informative manner. This database features full-text articles covering a variety of subjects, such as cancer, diabetes, drugs and alcohol use, fitness, and men’s and women’s health topics among many others. Besides covering mainstream health perspectives others, such as holistic, complementary, and integrated medicine are also included, giving readers a wide range and variety of perspectives to choose from. Search results are separated into categories by document type, like magazine articles, encyclopedias, videos, or evidence based reports. This database will help you find reliable information written in understandable language for non-medical professionals.
Centers for Disease Control
Originally known as the Communicable Disease Center, the CDC was established on July 1, 1946 with the mission to stop the spread of malaria across the United States. CDC’s founder, Dr. Joseph Mountin, worked tirelessly to expand the CDC’s mission to include other communicable diseases. In line with that expanded mission, the CDC website offers up-to-date information on not just the most pressing health concerns in the U.S. and around the world, but a whole range of information on other communicable diseases and health issues. The website features information on a variety of topics such as healthy living, vaccines and vaccine schedules, travel advisories, and emergency preparedness. The CDC is one of the preeminent health organizations in the world and their website should be regularly visited for current information on just about any public health related topics.
