Minutes of the Public Health Information Group Meeting

1. EAHIL Istanbul Online 2021
Public Health Information Group Meeting
Time: Tuesday 6th
July at 16-17 pm CEST;
Place: Zoom
Minutes
Chair: Mala Mann
Secretary: Katri Larmo
1. Apologies for absence
Unfortunately, the group Co-chair Tomas Allen could not attend the meeting. Due to technical problems, our other Co-
chair Ana-Belen Escriva could join only some parts of the meeting.
2. Round of introductions
Chair Mala Mann started the meeting with the round of introductions.
2. Acceptance of the agenda
We decided to share experiences on working during the covid-19 pandemic. What challenges have we faced and what
solutions found?
3. Themes discussed
Speed and volume of digitalization
Our work has been very digitalized before the pandemic, but now the pace and volume of digitalization has been even
more rapid. Developments that have been on the way, have now been implemented on the run, e.g. in document delivery,
user education and active use of online collaboration tools. This has been successful, but it has taken a lot of work and
there is continuous innovation process going on, how to do things even better. Continuous advocacy of our work is
crucial, to make visible the work we do.
Supporting systematic information retrieval
The urgency and volume to get public health related systematic searches has been growing. We discussed how to find the
best balance between what’s reasonable, within the available time and the purpose of the work (e.g. a student doing
master thesis vs. a research group doing a meta-analysis)? It is important that the customers know and understand that
help is available. Sometimes a consultation session is enough, sometimes it’s better that the information professional does
the whole search. Also, system for peer review of search strategies would be good.
In context on the discussion on these broad and complex searches, Kristine shared a tip on a very useful database: TRID,
an integrated database that combines the records from TRB’s Transportation Research Information Services (TRIS)
Database and the OECD’s Joint Transport Research Centre’s International Transport Research Documentation (ITRD)
Database. TRID provides access to more than 1.3 million records of transportation research worldwide: https://trid.trb.org/
Engaging participants in online user education
We shared ideas on how to keep participants engaged and interested while giving user education from distance. One
good idea is to record the “lecture part” of the teaching and on live sessions do the hands-on practical information
retrieval tasks. It’s good to give very practical hands-on exercises to do in break out rooms and encourage participants to
keep their videos on, to strengthen the interaction in the group. There is a nice tweet @EthicsInBricks, apt for the “black
screens” problem https://twitter.com/EthicsInBricks/status/1399396527030915081/photo/1
Collaboration tools, communication, professional support

2. We also discussed the e-collaboration tools that we are using (Teams, wikis, Zoom, chat), both with our colleagues and
with customers. Some tools work well with smaller teams, but not so well with big groups. Email is of course very much in
use. One important aspect is the professional support we can give each other through e-tools. There are platforms for
sharing search strategies, but they are not maybe used very actively. We agreed that, in addition to all the other tools, we
can with a very low threshold use our emails to reach for each other for help and ideas. Following the example of the
Evidence-based Practice SIG, we could also have a projects programme. E.g. to help teaching the complex search
strategies, we could have a list of specialist resources / or a wiki specific for research on public health.
4. Close
Our chair Mala thanked all participants for the good discussion and ended the meeting at 17 CEST.