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Author: Laura Abate

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let's talk vaccines book coverHow can you talk with patients about vaccines?  How can you address vaccine hesitancy, combat myths and misinformation, and save lives?

Himmelfarb Library recently added Let's Talk Vaccines: A Clinician's Guide to Addressing Vaccine Hesitancy and Saving Lives to our online and print collections.  Let's Talk Vaccines covers everything from the science of vaccine safety to the psychology of risk communication.  It includes real-life examples and thoughtful, evidence-based techniques that will help patients understand vaccines and make informed decisions.

Let's Talk Vaccines is useful to primary care providers, pediatricians, family physicians, nurse practitioners, and public health advocates.  The book provides an excellent framework for how to approach difficult discussions, with the goal of improving the health of each patient as well as the community at large.  The book uses a patient-centered approach to

  • Directly address the increasing trend of parents choosing not to vaccinate their children, including the history and psychology of the anti-vaccine movement.
  • Examine the issues underlying vaccine hesitancy, answering the common questions and concerns that vaccine-hesitant patients may raise during office visits.
  • Help you dispel myths and fears that many patients have, with particular attention paid to misinformation and skepticism on social media.
  • Cover the anti-vaccine movement’s assertions about autism, autoimmune illnesses and allergies, toxic ingredients, overwhelming the immune system, conspiracies, and more – bringing you up to date with the most common issues and effective approaches to the vaccine discussion.
  • Provide practical tips on approaching the vaccine-hesitant parent and how anti-vaccine patients change their minds, with a focus on remaining a positive partner in your patients’ care and finding greater success in your vaccination efforts

Let's Talk Vaccines is available online from both on- and off-campus locations.  Himmelfarb Library's print copy is currently available on the New Book Shelf (QR189 .L37 2020) and is available for checkout.

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DynaMed, Lexicomp and Epocrates app iconsHimmelfarb Library provides clinical apps for free download!  DynaMed, Lexicomp and Epocrates Plus (premium) provide clinical information including up to the minute disease and drug information.  All three apps provide access to information whether or not you have WiFi or data access at your point of need.

For each app, download the free app from the iTunes store or Google Play, and then follow the instructions on Himmelfarb Library's App Shelf in order to connect your app to Himmelfarb's subscription.

If you prefer not to install the app, you can access these resources via 24/7 web access from Himmelfarb Library's webpage.  DynaMed and Epocrates Plus are mobile-optimized so will display well whether you're accessing these information tools on your cell phone, a tablet, or computer.

If you have any questions, please contact Laura Abate (leabate@gwu.edu).

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Social Media Marketing Strategy

The question of how digital technologies can promote health is explored in an editorial by GW faculty Lorien C. Abroms recently published in Health Education and Behavior.  Dr. Abroms and her co-authors discuss the dominance of social media in current culture and the challenge of identifying its positive and negative health effects.

Among the possible approaches to harnessing social media to promote health, they identify collaboration and partnerships between government agencies and social media companies; scholarship to identify and assess positive and negative health effects of social media; and, social media public health campaigns which are rigorously assessed and evaluated.

To better understand the issues surrounding social media and health and to discover options for the way forward, read the full-text article from Himmelfarb Library's collection:

Abroms, L. C., Gold, R. S., & Allegrante, J. P. (2019). Promoting Health on Social Media: The Way Forward. Health education & behavior : the official publication of the Society for Public Health Education, 46(2_suppl), 9–11. doi:10.1177/1090198119879096

 

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On Tuesday, November 12 from 10-11 a.m., Himmelfarb Library will provide a training session in Covidence, an online tool that manages and facilitates much of the systematic review process.  Covidence is a not-for-profit service working in partnership with the Cochrane Library to improve the production and use of systematic reviews for health and wellbeing.

Covidence supports the screening process (both title/abstract and full-text), creation and population of data extraction forms, and helps complete your risk of bias tables. Covidence allows you to share work among your systematic review team and track the progress of your project.

Himmelfarb Library provides a Covidence Research Guide to help you sign up for an account.  This guide also provides video tutorials to show you what Covidence can do, and how it can be integrated with your systematic review process.

Remember, to join us at the Introduction to Covidence webinar on Tuesday, November 12 from 10-11 a.m. EST.

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JAMAevidence has information and tools to support you whether you're working on basic concepts, clinical application, or advanced analysis of evidence-based medicine.  For example, JAMAevidence provides access to:
JAMAevidence provides access to information and tools to identify the best available evidence and to support users in the systematic evaluation of the validity, importance, and applicability of health sciences research.  In addition to full-text access to key books, JAMAevidence gives you:
JAMAevidence is available 24/7 from the Himmelfarb Library’s webpage.  If you have any questions, please contact Laura Abate (leabate@gwu.edu).

 

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healthynovember.pngHealthy Living @ Himmelfarb has put together a calendar of free and affordable DC events for November.  So, take a study break and get out and see DC via a yoga brunch, the Smithsonian Food History Weekend, the GW Fall Dance Concert, or Zoolights.  You can also volunteer at the Safeway Feast of Sharing!

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salemwitch
Witch no. 1 lithograph by Joseph E. Baker (circa 1837-1914)

Salem Witch Trials—Bewitchment or Ergotism

From the JAMA archives just in time for Halloween, check out The Salem Witch Trials—Bewitchment or Ergotism which presents a new theory for what caused temporary blindness, skin lesions, convulsions, and hallucinations and eventually led to the Salem witch trials.
Interested in learning more about how ergot may have made history?  Search PubMed by Medical Subject Heading (MeSH) to find more articles: "Ergotism/history"[MAJR]

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sysrev3Are you interested in writing a systematic review and aren’t sure where to start? Have you already started a systematic review, but aren’t sure if you’re following the right steps, or are having trouble staying organized? 

Systematic reviews can seem daunting, but like anything, are a series of steps. Come learn more about the steps involved and some techniques for staying organized during the process. Register for The ABCs of Systematic Reviews session led by Himmelfarb’s Paul Levett, Reference and Instruction Librarian.

Date: Saturday, October 26, 2019

Time: 5:00pm - 6:00pm

Location: Online via WebEx

Categories: GWSPH Refine Your Research Skills workshops

Register for this session to learn the steps of systematic reviews and strategies for staying organized that can help set yourself for success for your next systematic review!

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Bangladesh Rural Advancement Committee workers traveling to communities, 1980s
Bangladesh Rural Advancement Committee (BRAC) workers traveling to communities, 1980s: Women between the ages of twenty and fifty are recruited by BRAC to teach oral rehydration therapy. Because Bangladeshi culture does not always allow women to travel far from their homes, men chaperone the workers and introduce them at each village they visit. Courtesy BRAC Bangladesh

The Himmelfarb Library and the SMHS Office of Diversity and Inclusion will be hosting the National Library of Medicine (NLM) exhibit:  Against the Odds: Making a Difference in Global Health.

Per the National Library of Medicine, Against the Odds: Making a Difference in Global Health examines stories of the community groups that are making a difference in global health around the world. People are working on a wide range of issues—from community health to conflict, disease to discrimination. As we learn more about the challenges of the past, we join a growing community of people committed to global health. A revolution in global health is taking place—see this exhibition and learn more."

The exhibit will be located on the first floor of Himmelfarb Library from October 21 until November 20, 2019.  We hope you will visit!

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NationalsCan supporting your local team (GO NATIONALS!) make you happier?

Examining the Potential Causal Relationship Between Sport Team Identification and Psychological Well-being by Daniel Wann uses past research and theory to develop a team identification model which suggests that high levels of identifying with a local supports team leads to positive psychological health.

 

Identifying with a distant sports team or being a fan in general doesn't provide significant well-being benefits.     Local team fans benefit from a larger social group, and "associations to other fans form the basis for a valuable connection to society at large and serve as a buffer to loneliness, isolation, and so forth."

 

You can read more about this topic by searching databases such as SPORTDiscus and PsycINFO which are available in Himmelfarb Library's collections.

 

Image citation: Fagen, A. (2009). Nationals Park.  Retrieved from: https://www.flickr.com/photos/afagen/3416538391/
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