FY2000 AIDS Community Outreach Projects

NLM has continued its HIV/AIDS- related outreach efforts to community-based organizations, patient advocacy groups, departments of health, and libraries. Funding is available to enable these organizations to design local programs for improving information access for AIDS patients and the affected community as well as their caregivers. Emphasis is on providing information or access in a way meaningful to the target community. Projects must involve one or more of the following information access categories: information retrieval, skills development, Internet access, resource development, and document access. Inquiries about this program may be made to aids@aids.nlm.nih.gov

The most recent awards were made to support the following projects:

Union Positiva, Inc. (Miami, FL) Funding from NLM will allow Union Positiva to develop and maintain an organizational web site. The information on the web site will be in Spanish and will include: information about Union Positiva and its services; information about the HIV/AIDS epidemic among Hispanics/Latino communities in South Florida; a community calendar noting events of importance for Hispanics/Latinos in South Florida; our quarterly Newsletter; materials developed by the organization; and links to other Spanish HIV/AIDS web sites. The web site will also offer a chat capability and the organization will host monthly chats with Spanish speaking physicians to answer questions online about HIV prevention, treatment and adherence. There will also be monthly chats with their outreach workers and peer counselors. Union Positiva will provide direct training to clients at their facility and in the community so that these clients can learn to access the Internet.

North Dade Health Center (Opa-locka, FL) Project "Make It Real" proposes to increase access to current HIV/AIDS and other STDs information to predominantly African American inner city adolescents, and to help them develop their computer literacy skills. The program will train the teens to create a website for two high schools with school-based health centers. The focus for content will be on teen-appropriate prevention information such as negotiation skills for safe dating, how to know if you are ready to have sex, explaining how the body works, how to talk to your parents about sex, etc. The Miami Dade County Public Schools, the Public Health Department, and the University of Miami will provide regular information about their programs for mounting on the web site. Students will also be training in how to access HIV/AIDS information from NLM, CDC and other reputable sources. They plan to build capacity in the schools by developing a group of well-trained students who will be able to train their peers. The teens will be recruited from each of the schools' established HIV Peer education programs, health professions programs, and other students including male athletes.

New York Public Library (Bronx, NY) The Bronx HIV/AIDS Information Outreach Project will offer training and access to reliable, current health and medical electronic resources for the Bronx HIV/AIDS community. The project will conduct 15 technology training workshops at two NYPL training centers for AIDS service organization staff, to help them identify, evaluation and use electronic information resources that they can share with their clients. Bilingual and lower literacy level materials will be emphasized. They will promote NYPL's role and a community resource for free HIV/AIDS electronic information and the training necessary to find that information. They will develop and distribute a bilingual guide to HIV/AIDS Internet resources written at the appropriate reading level. Project web pages will be developed with links to selected resources and other NYPL health and medical information.

Gay Men's Health Crisis (New York, NY) Support from NLM will enable GMHC's Treatment Education Program to formally develop and incorporate an Internet Training Program into their menu of services. They plan to upgrade their existing treatment library and computer equipment as well as to develop, promote, and implement Internet training. The library renovation will ensure that the available space will be appropriately designed for use as a research center and Internet training area. They will purchase three additional computers for use in accessing information and for training. Each training session will be tailored to the information needs and skills of the participants. Training will include an overview of Internet search engines, databases (including NLM's), and web sites. Small group, three-hour training sessions will be held three times a month with the library and computers available during business hours for individual use.

Whitman-Walker Clinic (Washington, DC) The Whitman-Walker Clinic will improve client access to HIV information by installing six computers and Internet access at four client service sites: the Client Access Center, the primary point of service; Austin Center for Health and Living, the day treatment center; McKinney House, a residential facility for HIV positive women and their children; and the Bridge Back Program, a residential facility for HIV positive individuals in substance abuse treatment. They will also provide skills development for 500 clients as well as ongoing training at least once a month at each site. They will use other opportunities to discuss HIV/AIDS resources on the Internet such as their lecture series. In addition, they will promote using these resources by reporting on the project within the community.

Big Country AIDS Resources (Abilene, TX) The proposed HIV/STD Resource Center is a multimedia collection of HIV- and STD-related material specifically geared toward the HIV-affected community. It will serve 19 counties in rural West Texas. The collection will include books, periodicals, videos, and CD- ROM, as well as access to the Internet. A special feature will be Research by Request, which will enable patrons who are unable to visit the Resource Center to request information by mail (traditional or e-mail). The center will be promoted through the Speakers Bureau and brown bag lunches. In addition to HIV- infected individuals and their families, target populations for this project include the general public, high school and college students and area prison inmates.

Family and Medical Counseling Service (Washington, DC) This project will provide patient education in a unique format in a very underserved community (Anacostia). The primary medical department of this organization will not only provide comprehensive health care, but will provide a resource center for training clients to access information, staffed by the clinicians. This will enable the clients to pose their medical information questions to those who can and will help them interpret the information. The resource center will be open to the clients all day. Initial training of the clinic staff will be done through the PARTNERS Project, an NLM-funded consumer health project at the Himmelfarb Library, George Washington. NLM funding of this project will be used to purchase computers for the resource center. The ultimate goal is to have a resource center that will allow electronic access to medical information to any community person. The computers will also enable the social workers to work directly with their clients to connect them to services and state- of-the-art information.

The AIDS Library (Philadelphia, PA) The AIDS Library proposes to create a satellite library and community access computer center in the North Philadelphia officers of One Day at a Time (ODAAT). ODAAT is a community-based organization that provides services to people with HIV who have a history of drug and alcohol abuse, when mainstream agencies are closed. ODAAT is the oldest established residential substance abuse recovery program in Philadelphia. This project will take the resources of the AIDS Library into the community. Project TEACH, which has received support from NLM in the past and the AIDS Library will provide training for staff and ODAAT community leaders in the use of computers as well as the Internet to gather HIV information. The AIDS Library's collections will be made available to ODAAT staff and clients and satellite library staff will also be trained. They will be able to refer more complicated questions to the staff at the AIDS Library. The project will specifically target low-income people of color living with HIV, and people with a history of drug and alcohol abuse, which puts them at a high risk for HIV infection.

Project 2000 (Washington, DC) Project 2000 and Hine Junior High School will team together to offer HIV/AIDS training to select staff and students who will then serve as trainers for Hine Students and parents, and students and parents of the Project 2000 community. Participants will learn how to search the web for information on HIV/AIDS information, from prevention to caring for those who are exposed to the virus. The Hine Library, under the guidance of its librarian, has 6 high-speed computers linked to T1 lines, which will serve as the training site to access NLM's HIV/AIDS-related information. A computer lab will be set up in Project 2000 house, a study center located in the Woodland Terrace Housing Project in Ward 8 in southeast Washington, DC to further community exposure to this information. This site will be open to parents and community members on designated week nights and weekends during the course of the project. Additionally, Hine and Project 2000 students will develop a web page on HIV/AIDS to be included on Hine and Project 2000 web sites. Students themselves will be responsible for the development and maintenance of the web site.

University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Library (Oklahoma City, OK) A virtual information resource for Oklahomans living with HIV/AIDS is desperately needed in the state. Oklahoma's rural character contributes to patients' isolation, concerns about confidentiality, and the difficulty of traveling to a health library with a substantial collection. These are barriers to both consumers and to health providers in Oklahoma. The low prevalence of HIV infection in the state combined with the rural nature presents unique challenges. The proposed project will: (1) improve electronic access to HIV/AIDS information resources via an innovative web-based resource (including an electronic reference desk to answer questions and fulfill document requests); (2) provide skills development training in access and using these resources; and (3) enhance the ability of local organizations to better meet the needs of their geographically dispersed clients by creating and providing access to a resource directory of HIV/AIDS services in the state.

River Region Human Services, Inc. (Jacksonville, FL) Three local non-profit agencies will collaborate to provide a comprehensive Jacksonville AIDS Information Service (JAIS) Library. The three agencies are: River Region Human Services (RRHS), a community-based HIV, substance abuse, and mental health agency; Edward Waters College Library (EWC), an African American institution located in the highest risk area for HIV/AIDS; and the Borland Health Sciences Library (BHSL), a technical library providing research and training services to medical and health professionals. They will use a three-pronged approach to reach different subpopulations of the area. Level I will target members of the most at-risk communities with a mobile library of basic information and referrals. Level II will be the hub JAIS Center located in the heart of the African American community at the EWC. Level III, at BHSL, will provide training to health professionals. This model will provide a continuum of services and resources in the community.

AIDS Education Global Information System (AEGiS) AEGiS seeks funding from NLM to support a staff person as a content assistant to the Operations Director (Sr. Mary Elizabeth). AEGiS is presently serving over 350,000 user sessions per month and has archived over 700,000 documents dealing with HIV/AIDS including information from NLM and other government agencies, wire services, and community organizations. All the data are retrievable through word searching. It is anticipated that the number of documents stored will grow tremendously over the next two years. Additional assistance in processing this material is required to keep the site timely and accessible.

Project Inform (San Francisco, CA) Continued funding from NLM will support Project Inform's Online Treatment Information Project which provides a state-of-the art resources for important HIV/AIDS treatment information access and retrieval. Project Inform staff produces all of the treatment information available on the web site (www.projectinform.org). This project (Online Treatment Information Project) is entering its fifth year with record use of its web site. It receives over 300,000 hits to the website per month and usage is increasing. The web site provides a comprehensive resource for in-depth HIV/AIDS treatment information and late breaking news in the areas of drug development and access. The Project Inform web site is often used by the newly diagnosed as it is free and confidential and is a highly trusted resource by the community.

Texas Woman's University (Denton, TX) The Dallas AIDS Information Network, organized by the university, currently operates Internet workstations at the Dallas AIDS Resource Center, Nelson-Tebedo Clinic and the Oaklawn Branch of the Dallas Public Library. This collaborative effort is building a local HIV/AIDS information infrastructure with the Dallas AIDS Information Network as its hub. This new project will extend DAIN from the traditional gay district of Dallas into three new community sites. These additional sites include areas of high populations of minorities and disadvantaged families. In addition, training will be provided at the three new sites and a Spanish Language section will be added to the web site.

University of Massachusetts Medical School (Worcester, MA) The Lamar Soutter Library at the University of Massachusetts and 5 HIV/AIDS related agencies who came together in October 1998 to form the Worcester Area HIV/AIDS Information Network (WAHAIN) will partner with an additional 4 agencies to expand and continue the project. The Lamar Soutter Library will provide training and equipment to access and find current reliable HIV/AIDS related information via the Internet and NLM database. The original project focused on the staff of the agencies. This project will expand the focus to include training sessions specifically designed for the consumer or those with the disease.

New Mexico AIDS Info Net--University of New Mexico (Albuquerque, NM) The New Mexico AIDS InfoNet is an online HIV/AIDS information resource, providing fact sheets on treatment and related information in non- technical language in English and Spanish. In addition, the web site includes and categorized listing of more than 400 HIV/AIDS web site addresses. The web site received of 35,000 visits each month; 45% of those visits are from outside the US. This proposal is for the expansion of the fact sheet collection and ongoing updating of the existing collection. In addition, partnering with the Ryan White/Partners in Care program, New Mexico's HIV/AIDS physicians will be encouraged to incorporate the fact sheets into their patient education activities. In collaboration with the University of New Mexico Health Sciences Center Library, the InfoNet web site will be publicized to audiences of public librarians and medical librarians and access to HIV/AIDS journal articles will be provided for New Mexico consumers and health care providers.