Consumer Health Information

Abstract

In the past several years health care reform, increased public awareness and new opportunities for consumers and librarians have fueled the growth in consumer health information. Librarians providing consumer health information for the first time and those who have been providing consumer health information for years need to consider more than just shelf space, funding and vendors. Institutions providing services to consumers in their service population need to also consider literacy levels of that population, the readability of patient education materials provided, language barriers and access to materials, both physical and electronically.

Key Words:

• Consumer health information
• literacy
• readability
• access to information
• language barriers