Healthy Roads Media and other sources of quality health information in many languages and multiple formats

Healthy Roads Media: A source of quality health information in many languages and multiple formats

From a recent posting to Medlib-L (a medical librarian listserv)

“I direct a multilingual web-based health information project called Healthy Roads Media (www.healthyroadsmedia.org).

It is an effort to explore, develop and evaluate the use of various information technology strategies to provide health information access to hard to reach populations. Of special focus are low-literacy and non-English speaking groups.

Our materials are in multiple formats – handouts, audio, multimedia, web-video, and iPod video. We have had the content migrate off of the computer platform to iPods, televisions (via cabled iPod), radio and simple MP3 players (a solder in Iraq). Audio is our most accessed format (even more than handouts).

Some of the languages we work with are new or come from mainly an oral tradition so formats other than written are especially important. I am just beginning to explore mobile phone strategies as this technology has penetrated into every group and is easier for many to access that computers/internet. The one thing we have not explored (due to lack of funding and staff) are social media strategies.”

Current Topics include abuse, AIDS/HIV, asthma, cancer, dental health, diseases/conditions,food/nutrition, housing, immunization, mental health,pregnancy, sexual health, smoking, and TB.

The Links page includes

• New Routes: Using local media made by immigrants and refugees to improve the health of immigrants and refugees.
• Multicultural Health Communication Service
• Immunization Action Coalition
• Minnesota Dept. of Health – Refugee Health
• Multilingual & Multicultural Information Sites
• The 24 Languages Project
• The Center for Cross-Cultural Health
• The San Jose Plane Tree Health Library
• EthnoMed: Ethnic medicine information from Harborview Medical Center
• Virginia Department of Health, Division of Disease Prevention, Tuberculosis Control
• Hmong Health Website
• American Academy of Physicians, FamilyDoctor.org
• Health Information Translations
• California Health Literacy Initiative
• Multi-Cultural Educational Resources
• MedlinePlus Interactive Health Tutorials

Some additional resources

• Health Information in Multiple Languages (MedlinePlus)
• Consumer Health Information in Many Languages Resources (National Network of Libraries of Medicine) As of Dec 2010 languages included American Sign Language, Arabic, Cambodian/Khmer, Chinese, French, German, Hmong, Korean, Laotian, Russian, Spanish, Thai, and Vietnamese
• Multilingual Health Information (Stanford) As of Dec 2010 the site included nearly 50 languages)
• Health Materials in Languages other than English
  
• (Health) Materials in Asian Languages
  
• Health Information Translations -Quality Translations in Multiple Languages (via Mount Carmel Health Sciences Library)

• Locate easy-to-read health information in different languages.
• Print outs are in English and in a foreign language (dual language information).

Sources (with additional links)

Multicultural and Multilingual Health Information (University of Colorado Denver Health Sciences Library)

 Health Websites in Other Languages (Binghampton University Libraries)