SMILE: Sharing MedlinePlus®/MEDLINE® for information literacy education

The SMILE: Sharing MedlinePlus®/MEDLINE® for Information Literacy Education project is a partnership among the University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio Libraries, the Gateway Clinic in Laredo, and the San Antonio Metropolitan Health District. SMILE addresses information-access components of Healthy People 2010 and oral-health objectives specified in Healthy Border 2010. The project focuses on improving South Texas public health dental practitioners' access to reliable information resources, and integrating the best evidence from these resources into their public health dental practice.

Through its training program, SMILE cultivates a set of “power information users” among the dentists, dental hygienists, and community health workers (promotores) who provide public health preventive care and oral health education at five clinics throughout South Texas. Initial training sessions introduce National Library of Medicine resources, other reliable online health sites, and emerging technologies such as blogs and RSS feeds. Follow-up hands-on sessions demonstrate specific resources to resolve actual questions and problems the practitioners encounter.

SMILE employs new technologies to improve the information skills and usage by public dental practitioners. These efforts include a blog and an online tutorial to guide practitioners to reliable oral public health information. Content is also being created for a public health dentistry topic page on PHPartners.org.

Relying on training and resource development, the SMILE project is providing information literacy skills that dental public health practitioners need for lifelong learning and evidence-based practice. With these skills, practitioners are enhancing patients' lives and their communities.