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Document Type |
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Article In Journal |
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Document Title |
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. The role of public libraries in the development of health literacy to support the control of global health crises دور المكتبات العامة في تنمية الوعي الصحي ومكافحة الأزمات الصحية العالمية |
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Subject |
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Public Libraries |
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Document Language |
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Arabic |
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Abstract |
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In June 2009, the World Health Organization (WHO) announced raising the level of the influenza pandemic “H1N1” alert from phase 5 to 6. This was based on the available data, the experts’ evaluation of it and the scientific criteria for the influenza pandemic. In the announcement of Dr Margaret Chan, the General Director of the WHO, she said that all countries should be prepared to face the infected cases or the extensive spreading of the influenza pandemic in the near future. They should follow the WHO instructions sent to the ministries of health worldwide concerning the protective and precautionary measures specified.
Libraries and information institutions play a key role in supporting and increasing health literacy. Thus their reaction was fast in activating this role through programs and precautionary actions necessary to increase health literacy.
Health Literacy is defined as: “the set of abilities needed to know the required information about health, identify likely information sources and use them to retrieve relevant information. In addition, these abilities are used to assess the quality of the information and its applicability to a specific situation. They are also useful in analyzing, understanding, and using the information to make good health decisions” (MLA, 2005).
This study seeks to answer a main question: "What are the procedures and measures taken by the Egyptian public libraries to increase health literacy concerning the spread of the influenza pandemic, and to support the international efforts to limit this spreading?"
The empirical approach used to address the research problem was a field study with a questionnaire. The main purposes of this paper are: Monitoring of health literacy programs and activities in Egyptian public libraries, identifying the measures and procedures followed by these libraries to increase health literacy during the current health crisis of the influenza pandemic, and comparing their performance with that of the foreign public libraries.
The study surveys twenty seven public libraries divided into two categories as follows: twenty one Egyptian public libraries, and six foreign libraries (4 U.S., 2 Canadian). The most important findings of the study show that 90% of Egyptian public libraries provide health literacy activities during the "reading for all festival". They did not allocate a specific section to news and information about the influenza pandemic in their websites. Also there are no external links to likely resources in Arabic or foreign libraries’ websites. The role of the public libraries’ websites in the Arab world is ineffective concerning health literacy. Also Egyptian public libraries don’t pay much attention to the importance of social networks because none of them has a special page on social networks used in the Arab world like "Facebook". It is noticeable that none of the Egyptian and foreign libraries has a blog for the influenza pandemic. |
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ISSN |
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1431-2010 |
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Journal Name |
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Journal of King Fahd National Library |
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Volume |
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30 |
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Issue Number |
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3 |
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Publishing Year |
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1431 AH
2010 AD |
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Article Type |
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Article |
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Added Date |
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Wednesday, December 12, 2012 |
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Researchers
| أماني محمد السيد | Alsayed, Amany Mohammed | Researcher | Doctorate | Amany03@gmail.com |
| عماد عيسى صالح | Saleh, Imad Issa | Investigator | Doctorate | esalh2@yahoo.com |
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