[Sighlth-l] Call for papers: Crucial conversations: Meeting health information needs outside of healthcare

[Catherine Arnott Smith]

Colleagues, I would greatly appreciate your help in publicizing this 
call for chapters--not just to information scientists and information 
professionals, but to people in other information settings. The focus of 
this book is health information needs that have to be met by 
non-clinicians. Please feel free to write me with questions. And thanks 
in advance!

Call follows:
************************************************************************************* 


Call for Chapters: Crucial conversations: Meeting health information 
needs outside of healthcare. To be published by Chandos Publishing (a 
division of Elsevier), 2015.

Editors: Catherine Arnott Smith, PhD, and Alla Keselman, PhD.

Proposals due February 15, 2014; drafts due June 1, 2014; full chapters 
due September 1, 2014.
________________________________________
Introduction
The book will address the challenges and ethical dilemmas concerning the 
delivery of health information to the general public in a wide variety 
of non-clinical settings. Instead of patient education or patient 
communication in hospitals and clinics, our interest is the challenges 
and successes of presenting health information outside of patient care 
by non-clinicians. Potential roles of interest include librarians, 
educators, social services workers, journalists and science writers who 
enable information exchange among the public through traditional and 
social media channels, and all who moderate or enable health 
communication online. Potential settings of interest include, but are 
certainly not limited to, public and academic libraries; schools; 
colleges; community health centers and other social service agencies; 
and World Wide Web environments supporting patient communities (e.g., 
PatientsLikeMe, 23andMe).

Consumer health information provision is conducted by professionals 
working in a range of fields, including librarianship, education, 
journalism, and health communication. The challenges and controversies 
of this material are both practical and ethical in nature. On a 
practical level, professionals need to ensure that the information they 
provide is understood the way they intended. The consumers who receive 
the information differ in their background knowledge, health literacy, 
health beliefs, and understanding and attitudes towards risk. Meanwhile, 
the information is being exchanged in a particular professional context, 
a context that affects and is affected by the information giver’s 
ethical standards and work processes. Some of the controversies in this 
domain are uniquely characteristic of their fields; others are general, 
arising from the sensitive nature of health information and the 
ambiguity of the exact role of the professional who provides it.

The book begins with an overview of the historical key issues in this 
domain, and addresses the connection between biomedical and information 
professional ethics in the fields tasked with health information 
provision. Next, we address user-centered issues: the interplay between 
lay information seekers’ prior knowledge and those attributes of their 
background that affects their understanding of health information. The 
next section centers on the professionals and practitioners who provide 
health information to lay people in specific contexts outside of 
healthcare professional practice. Finally, examples of challenges 
inherent in particular information resources are presented.

Suggested Topics for Submission
The following outline gives an idea of the populations, professionals 
and information resources we are particularly interested in; however, 
this list is not meant to be exhaustive or restrictive, and potential 
contributors who have other ideas are encouraged to contact us with 
their suggestions.

Section 1: Overview
The principles of medical ethics
Health literacy and illiteracy

Section 2: Target Populations, Professionals, Resources, Settings
Populations include: the aged, teenagers, parents, migrant workers, 
homeless people, low-income/transient/uninsured persons, immigrants, and 
sexual minorities.
Professionals include: journalists, librarians, educators, social 
services workers, information technologists.
Information resource challenges include balance; credibility of online 
information; alternative explanations and popular challenges to 
scientific expertise; information architecture; and online support 
groups (considered as information venues).
Settings include: Libraries, social service agencies, World Wide Web 
environments supporting patient communities (e.g., PatientsLikeMe, 23andMe)

We are looking for original work that has not been published elsewhere, 
of a length between 10,000 and 14,000 words.

Important Dates
Contributor selection process begins: February 15, 2014. All 
contributors will be notified by March 15, 2014. Drafts are due to 
coeditors on June 1, 2014, and final manuscripts on September 1, 2014. 
Coeditors will review and contact contributors with suggested revision 
as necessary between September 2 and October 31, 2014.

This book will be published by Chandos Publishing 
[http://www.woodheadpublishing.com/en/ChandosHome.aspx]. Chandos and its 
parent, Woodhead Publishing, are divisions of Elsevier. These 
publication houses are international firms specializing in library and 
information science, Internet and social media, and science, technical 
and information trends worldwide.

Please send chapter proposals (~350 words) and a current curriculum vita 
to lead editor Catherine Arnott Smith (casmith24 at wisc.edu), University 
of Wisconsin-Madison. Contact Prof. Smith or coeditor Dr. Alla Keselman 
(allagkeselman at gmail.com) with questions.

About the coeditors: Dr. Catherine Arnott Smith is an Associate 
Professor in the School of Library & Information Studies, University of 
Wisconsin-Madison. She holds a PhD in Library & Information 
Sciences/Medical Informatics and an MSIS in Information Sciences/Medical 
Informatics (University of Pittsburgh, 2002 and 2000 respectively), as 
well as master’s degrees in library and information science and American 
History/archives administration (University of Michigan, both 1992). Her 
research interests are consumer health vocabularies and consumer health 
informatics, as well as clinical information exchange in nonclinical 
spaces, such as public libraries and university disability resources 
centers.

Dr. Alla Keselman holds a PhD in human cognition and learning and an MA 
in biomedical informatics from Columbia University. Dr. Keselman, 
currently a Senior Social Science Analyst in the Division of Specialized 
Information Services, National Library of Medicine, conducts research 
into lay understanding of complex health concepts, health literacy, and 
consumer health informatics, as well as the role of libraries and 
librarians in providing health information to the public. Dr. Keselman's 
expertise also includes the development of life sciences and health 
education resources for K-12 students and teachers.

-- 
Catherine Arnott Smith, PhD
Associate Professor
School of Library and Information Studies
University of Wisconsin

Faculty in Residence, Living Environments Laboratory
Wisconsin Institutes of Discovery

**on sabbatical leave at Indiana University, Bloomington, IN, August-December 2013**

Blogging at http://elfshot.info

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