Building Resilience to Health Misinformation in Local Communities: A Public and Academic Libraries Partnership in San Diego County

Abstract

In the Fall of 2021, the San Diego County Board of Supervisors declared COVID-Misinformation a public health crisis and adopted a series of measures to actively combat it. A regional group of library directors agreed to work together to support the county efforts to provide accurate information to the community. Each library sent a representative, health sciences librarians from the academic libraries, and adult services librarians who were already involved in health outreach from the public libraries. The group wanted to support the county goals by providing high quality information and helping with health literacy. At the first meeting the group brainstormed ideas to support the County’s campaign measures. These ideas were synthesized into a framework of action areas and initiatives. The group then rated each initiative by potential impact and the ease of doing that item. The characteristics of an ideal initiative were projects that were collaborative, with a one year timeline, that aligned with existing library services and could be sustained with current personnel, as well as projects that would reach out into the community. Employing an inclusive, participatory process, we prioritized eight information initiatives to pursue in 2022. The final priorities for the group are: build a database of reliable health information sources, build reference skills of library personnel and a referral guide, develop a network of libraries, conduct instruction and events for the community. The regional directors had priorities to engage public officials, engage community advocates, invite experts to work with libraries, and find ways to train health workers. After the meetings to finalize priorities, the group met with the regional directors to request approval for the final priorities. The timeline for the various initiatives was also approved, so the group has started building a collection of resources to help answer health questions and educate people on how to find reliable health information, and has set a data for training from the regional Network of the National Library of Medicine office. The group also met with regional public health administrators to align programs and discuss areas of collaboration. Further work and any resources developed will be shared during the program. The speaker will reflect on the alignment of our unique partnership to the collective impact model – a social innovation concept whereby a network of community members, organizations, and institutions coordinate to advance equity and facilitate social change.