The Health and Biosciences Libraries with Evidence for Global and Disaster Health (E4GDH) were to hold a one day pre-congress meeting on 14 August 2020.

Due to the cancellation of the IFLA congress in Dublin 2020. The satellite meeting has been postponed. The IFLA congress will now take place in Dublin in 2022.

Theme: “Health literacy: libraries and communities working together for health & wellbeing”

Organizers:

Health and Biosciences Libraries Section (HBS) joint with Evidence for Global and Disaster Health (E4GDH) Special Interest Group and The Health Sciences Libraries Group of the Library Association of Ireland

HBS and E4GDH are delighted to be collaborating with local partner The Health Sciences Libraries Group of the Library Association of Ireland on this event.

The theme of our combined satellite meeting is health literacy. We are interested in submissions that explore the issues surrounding health literacy, including equity of access to good quality health information; access to health information in multi-languages; issues relating to deliberate or unintentional misinformation; and solutions to prevent digital health inequalities.

Submissions considering how librarians contribute to increasing health information literacy, i.e. providing the skills to find, appraise and apply health information – will also be very welcome.

We invite presentations from a broad range of library sectors, as well as those from other health professionals, and those highlighting partnership working

The Satellite meeting theme ties in with our two recent IFLA publications:

• Our IFLA Special Journal Issue – Health information transforming lives – was published in October 2019.
• Our forthcoming IFLA book – Growing community health literacy through libraries: sharing global perspectives – will be launched during the IFLA 2020 WLIC Congress.
  [Pre-launch promotional flyer] [PDF].

Authors from both publications will be guest speakers at the Satellite Meeting.

Possible topics could cover but are not limited to:

• Digital Literacy and equity of access to good quality health information through a variety of channels.
  “As information about health and illness is increasingly (and often exclusively) available in digital form, we face a new public health challenge – digital health inequality.”
  Gann B (2019) “Transforming lives: Combating digital health inequality” IFLA Journal 45(3)
• Health information awareness challenges.
  These may include fake news, deliberate disinformation and unintentional misinformation or misrepresentation.
• Multilingual health information access and health literacy.
  According to the WHO most of the world’s population has little or no access to relevant and high-quality resources to inform their health and well-being because it is in English.
  Adams P & Fleck F (2015) “Bridging the language divide in health” Bulletin of the World Health Organization 93(6)
• Collaborations between library and information professionals and other stakeholders/partners to address challenges such as those listed above.

For more information on the submission process, see the IFLA congress website https://2020.ifla.org/cfp-calls/health-and-biosciences-libraries-with-evidence-for-global-and-disaster-health/