EAHIL Cardiff 2018, Public Health Information Group Meeting Minutes

1. EAHIL Cardiff 2018
Public Health Information Group Meeting
Wednesday 11th
July at 17.30-18.50
Glamorgan Building, Committee Room 1+2
Minutes
Chair: Tomas Allen
Secretary: Katri Larmo
1. Acceptance of the agenda
The agenda was accepted without changes.
2. HealthReach
The main topic of our meeting was HealthReach (https://healthreach.nlm.nih.gov/) and the potential collaboration
between EAHIL members and HealthReach.
HealthReach is a database offering easy access to quality health information in many languages that healthcare
providers can share with limited English proficiency individuals. HealthReach is also an important resource for
health professionals and public health administrators seeking best practices and population-specific tools, such as
cultural backgrounders and tips for effective use of interpreters.
We were happy to have Laura Bartlett and Michael Honch from the National Library of Medicine attending our
meeting. They gave an overview of the project and described the potential forms of cooperation. For further
information, here is the recording presenting HealthReach from PHIG’s online meeting in May.
After the presentation, the floor was open for questions and comments.
To highlight some of them:
 Connection to MedlinePlus? HealthRearch provides their collection to MedlinePlus so it is the same
content. The only exception is MedlinePlus en Espanol https://medlineplus.gov/spanish/ which is not
included in HealthReach because it does not meet HealthReach’s cataloging inclusion criteria.
 Who writes the materials? The author should be a licensed health professional. Equally important is how
the material is written. The text needs to be understandable for everyone. In the future, HealthReach will
list the qualifications of the author (social workers, nurse, MD, etc.). This request has been made by several
user groups in the U.S.
 Meeting participants reviewed the situation in their own countries. Among others, Tatyana Kaigodrova
and Diala Al Samarani from Lebanon described the huge need for more high quality open health
information sources. Therefore, there is lots of potential for co-operation, as in many other countries as
well. In Britain, e.g. NHS Choices offers lots of quality checked information that we should also be aware.
What PHIG members could do?
 Identify suitable materials to be added in HealthReach
 Collect metadata and perform informational interviews
 Find possible contact persons in their own countries
 Promote and educate HealthReach as a high quality information source.

2. HealthReach can serve as a repository for metadata and share the collection via website of API. There is a huge
potential for synergy and mutual benefit.
3. Updates from PHIG members
 Tomas informed us that WHO Research4Life has now five programs. The newest, “Global Online Access to
Legal Information” (GOALI), was launched on March 6, 2018, by The International Labour Organization
(ILO) and its partners.
 Dianne Babski from NLM told about the future changes of PubMed. We can get a preview of them in
PubMed Labs. The launch will probably be during 2019. Entrez will be moved to a new infrastructure, to a
cloud and the interface will be renewed as well. NLM Technical Bulletin is a good information source for
getting further information these changes.
 In addition, CABI will update their interface in the near future, as told by Isobel Hoskins.
 Anne Brice informed us about the new special interested group in IFLA: Evidence for Global and Disaster
Health.
4. Close
Tomas thanked everyone closed the meeting at 18.50.