141st APHA Annual Meeting

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Healthy People 2020 Structured Evidence Queries: Facilitating access to published research for public health planning and policy development

Tuesday, November 5, 2013

E. Hatheway Simpson, MPH , National Network of Libraries of Medicine, New England Region, University of Massachusetts Medical School, Worcester, MA
Lisa Sedlar, MLS , National Information Center on Health Services Research and Health Care Technology (NICHSR), National Library of Medicine, Bethesda, MD
Lisa Lang, MPP , National Information Center on Health Services Research and Health Care Technology (NICHSR), National Library of Medicine, Bethesda, MD
Healthy People 2020 (HP2020) provides national objectives to guide health promotion and disease prevention efforts in the United States. Public health professionals and policy makers may have limited time to identify relevant research evidence to inform program planning and policy development. The National Library of Medicine (NLM) recognized the need to reduce the time and increase the precision of finding research literature to support the development of evidence-based actions to achieve HP2020 objectives. NLM collaborated with the HHS Office of Disease Prevention and Health Promotion to develop pre-formulated search strategies - structured evidence queries (SEQs) - of the PubMed database to make research evidence related to HP2020 objectives easier to find. The search queries were developed by librarians, working in consultation with subject matter experts in public health. The HP2020 SEQ website is organized by HP2020 topic areas and provides PubMed search results for HP2020 objectives including the Leading Health Indicators, a subset of high-priority health issues that represent significant threats to the public's health. The PubMed search strategies were designed to return a manageable number of relevant citations for busy public health professionals to review. The search strategies can be modified in PubMed to address particular practice and research needs. Information to help users learn more about PubMed, obtain full-text copies of articles, and find additional resources for public health practice are provided in the FAQs section of the site. The resource was developed as a result of an effective partnership between librarians, public health professionals, and subject experts.

Learning Areas:
Conduct evaluation related to programs, research, and other areas of practice
Implementation of health education strategies, interventions and programs
Planning of health education strategies, interventions, and programs
Program planning
Public health or related research

Learning Objectives:
Describe how to utilize Healthy People 2020 Structured Evidence Queries to access research evidence to achieve national health promotion and disease prevention objectives. Explain how to modify pre-formulated PubMed searches to meet specific public health practice and research needs. Demonstrate how to find additional information on public health topics available from NLM and public health partner organizations.

Keywords: Healthy People 2020, Evidence Based Practice

Presenting author's disclosure statement:

Qualified on the content I am responsible for because: As a Public Health Information Specialist, my work involves improving access to and awareness of information resources for public health practice. I have worked with public health partner organizations and federal agencies to develop evidence-based resources and tools for public health decision making. My professional accomplishments have included developing educational programs for public health professionals on finding and using evidence-based information resources.
Any relevant financial relationships? No

I agree to comply with the American Public Health Association Conflict of Interest and Commercial Support Guidelines, and to disclose to the participants any off-label or experimental uses of a commercial product or service discussed in my presentation.