For the first time, health students and faculty at ASU can share research worldwide and help shape health policy along the U.S./Mexico border, due to the university’s recent partnership with the U.S.-Mexico Border Virtual Health Library.
ASU launched the partnership two weeks ago. The library is a free online portal that gathers health research into a single location for doctors and researchers along the border, said Lorely Ambriz, development and knowledge management specialist for the Pan-American Health Organization (PAHO) Regional Office of the World Health Organization (WHO). This research is anything that may relate to border health issues, such as chronic and infectious diseases like AIDS and tuberculosis.
Ambriz said the Virtual Health Library is important because it provides context for such research by treating topics binationally. For example, both American and Mexican cultures include high-calorie foods, so nutrition information in the library would address that element of border health specifically.
The U.S.-Mexico Border Office of PAHO runs the library, which collaborates with 40 institutions to collect and share health research. ASU is the newest name on that list, Ambriz said. She said ASU’s research on global health, sleep disorders and community health workers are all examples of valuable contributions that can be made to the Virtual Health Library.
The collaboration will benefit students and faculty university-wide, said Carol Baldwin, director of ASU’s Center for World Health Promotion and Disease Prevention. Baldwin was the driving force at ASU for the collaboration between the university and the Virtual Health Library.
Research students and faculty at the university who are working on border health can publish and share their findings on a large scale, Downtown campus librarian Kevin Pardon said. This is especially valuable for “gray literature,” or research that is not published through traditional channels such as scientific journals because it is not in a conventional format.
Poster presentations are one example of gray literature. Student and faculty work such as conference presentations and dissertations will also be available through the Virtual Health Library, Pardon said.
However, publishing information in the library is not limited to just border health researchers, Baldwin said.
Baldwin said that any student working on a project related to border health can be included. She said one example is work from ASU journalism students who are reporting on a border health topic such as medical tourism, where citizens of one country, such as the U.S., go to another, such as Mexico, for health care.
“There isn’t going to be a soul that isn’t going to be affected,” Baldwin said. “It’s a huge benefit to our students. It’s a huge benefit to our faculty…It gives us a wider global audience.”
While the virtual library helps students and faculty get published on a larger scale, it also helps those who are reading that information, Pardon said. The library is for all health care providers living in border states and in Mexico, so doctors working with underserved and uninsured patients in these areas have better access to information and service for their patients.
ASU will also help shape public policy by contributing to the Virtual Health Library. According to Ambriz, government departments along the border use the library to inform how they construct public health programs and policies.
Baldwin said that by partnering with the library, ASU will save about $8,000 to $10,000 a year, money that was originally spent on getting access to holdings from The Cochrane Collaborating Center, which reviews evidence in research articles on health. She said that as a member of the Virtual Health Library, the university has free access to those holdings. The money saved could potentially go to options such as salary support for library student workers.
ASU hopes to partner with Phoenix community organizations, including the Society of St. Vincent de Paul, which provides services for the poor, and Central Arizona Shelter Services, which provides shelter for the homeless, Baldwin said. However, she said, that partnership will be postponed until the library is better known at ASU.
“It takes time. It takes training. So right now, what we’re doing is training all of the people at ASU,” Baldwin said.
According to Ambriz, the library started in 2002. Baldwin, Ambriz and PAHO/WHO U.S.-Mexico Border Office Chief Maria Teresa Cerqueira began working on the collaboration between ASU and the Virtual Health Library in 2009, Baldwin said. However, changes in administration at ASU’s College of Nursing and Health Innovation delayed the project.
Two years ago, the project started up again, Baldwin said. In November, ASU’s Provost of the University signed the memorandum of understanding describing the school and PAHO/WHO’s responsibilities. In June, the agreement between PAHO/WHO and ASU was signed and ASU became a member institution of the Virtual Health Library, Ambriz said.
The library went online two weeks ago when Ambriz visited the school to train the librarians in its use.
Contact the reporter at molly.bilker@asu.edu
