Welcome or not, most citizens in Western countries are unable to go through a day without receiving a dose of health information. Health information is available from, passed through, or pushed at lay citizens by healthcare professionals, alternative practitioners, pharmaceutical companies, employers, co-workers, friends and family members, vendors of health products, and government-sponsored campaigns. It is delivered through a variety of media, including, increasingly, the internet.
This book examines health information provision and seeking and the roles and interactions of human and technical actors that mediate this process. New empirical data from a number of clinical and community settings- including Aboriginal communities, libraries, rural areas, online communities and radiology clinics- is used to demonstrate a new concept termed 'health info(r)mediation'. Emerging socio-technical configurations are examined. The contributors are from a diverse range of academic and practice-oriented backgrounds, resulting in a critical and theoretically-based volume grounded in the practical realities of health information use in an increasingly networked world. Many of the chapters provide guidance for health, social service and information professionals charged with creating and/or providing health advice for citizens.
CHAPTER 1:
The Go-Betweens: Health, Technology and Info(r)mediation. Sally Wyatt, Roma Harris and, Nadine Wathen
CHAPTER 2:
'Everybody's Talking at Me': Situating the Client in the Info(r)mediary Work of the Health Professions. Leslie Bella, Roma Harris, Debbie Chavez, Jana Fear and Penny Gill
CHAPTER 3:
Health Intermediaries? Positioning the Public Library in E-Health Discourse. Flis Henwood, Roma Harris, Samantha Burdett and Audrey Marshal
CHAPTER 4:
To Filter or Not to Filter: Legal and Ethical Aspects of Librarians' Use of Internet Filtering Techniques. Elaine Gibson and Jan Sutherland
CHAPTER 5:
Invisible Logic: The Role of Software as an Information Intermediary in Health Care. Ellen Balka and Arsalan Butt
CHAPTER 6:
Personalized Narrative Diagnostic Imaging: Can it Mediate Patient-System Dialogue? Peter Pennefather and West Suhanic
CHAPTER 7:
Using the Internet as a Health Intermediary: Providing Information and Services to Marginalized Sexual Communities. T.C. Sanders
CHAPTER 8:
Between the Clinic and the Community: Pathways for an Emerging E-Health Policy in the Remote First Nations of Northwestern Ontario. Adam Fiser and Robert Luke
CHAPTER 9:
We're All Out there Busting Our Guts, Trying to Do the Best that We Can for Our People': Health Intermediaries in the Australian Indigenous Communities. Lyn Simpson, Michelle Hall and Susan Leggett
CHAPTER 10:
Helpers, Gatekeepers and the Well-Intentioned: The Mixed Blessings of HIV/AIDS Info(r)mediation in Rural Canada. Roma Harris, Tiffany Veinot, Leslie Bella, Irving Rootman and Judith Krajnak
CHAPTER 11:
Reflections on the Middle Space. Nadine Wathen, Roma Harris and Sally Wyatt.
NADINE WATHEN is Assistant Professor in the Faculty of Information and Media Studies, University of Western Ontario. She holds a Canadian Institutes of Health Research New Investigator Award to support her research, which includes: women's health, decision making, intervention research in the area of violence against women, translation and mobilization of research evidence to policy and practice, and projects on health information seeking and use.
SALLY WYATT is Professor of Digital Cultures in Development at Maastrict University, The Netherlands, and a Senior Research Fellow with the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences. Her research focuses on the relationship between technological and social change, especially on issues of social exclusion and inequality.
ROMA HARRIS is Professor in the Faculty of Information and Media Studies, University of Western Ontario, Canada. Currently, her work focuses on health information-seeking and she is leading the 'Rural HIV/AIDS Information Network Project' funded by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research.
Description
Welcome or not, most citizens in Western countries are unable to go through a day without receiving a dose of health information. Health information is available from, passed through, or pushed at lay citizens by healthcare professionals, alternative practitioners, pharmaceutical companies, employers, co-workers, friends and family members, vendors of health products, and government-sponsored campaigns. It is delivered through a variety of media, including, increasingly, the internet.
This book examines health information provision and seeking and the roles and interactions of human and technical actors that mediate this process. New empirical data from a number of clinical and community settings- including Aboriginal communities, libraries, rural areas, online communities and radiology clinics- is used to demonstrate a new concept termed 'health info(r)mediation'. Emerging socio-technical configurations are examined. The contributors are from a diverse range of academic and practice-oriented backgrounds, resulting in a critical and theoretically-based volume grounded in the practical realities of health information use in an increasingly networked world. Many of the chapters provide guidance for health, social service and information professionals charged with creating and/or providing health advice for citizens.
Contents
CHAPTER 1:
The Go-Betweens: Health, Technology and Info(r)mediation. Sally Wyatt, Roma Harris and, Nadine Wathen
CHAPTER 2:
'Everybody's Talking at Me': Situating the Client in the Info(r)mediary Work of the Health Professions. Leslie Bella, Roma Harris, Debbie Chavez, Jana Fear and Penny Gill
CHAPTER 3:
Health Intermediaries? Positioning the Public Library in E-Health Discourse. Flis Henwood, Roma Harris, Samantha Burdett and Audrey Marshal
CHAPTER 4:
To Filter or Not to Filter: Legal and Ethical Aspects of Librarians' Use of Internet Filtering Techniques. Elaine Gibson and Jan Sutherland
CHAPTER 5:
Invisible Logic: The Role of Software as an Information Intermediary in Health Care. Ellen Balka and Arsalan Butt
CHAPTER 6:
Personalized Narrative Diagnostic Imaging: Can it Mediate Patient-System Dialogue? Peter Pennefather and West Suhanic
CHAPTER 7:
Using the Internet as a Health Intermediary: Providing Information and Services to Marginalized Sexual Communities. T.C. Sanders
CHAPTER 8:
Between the Clinic and the Community: Pathways for an Emerging E-Health Policy in the Remote First Nations of Northwestern Ontario. Adam Fiser and Robert Luke
CHAPTER 9:
We're All Out there Busting Our Guts, Trying to Do the Best that We Can for Our People': Health Intermediaries in the Australian Indigenous Communities. Lyn Simpson, Michelle Hall and Susan Leggett
CHAPTER 10:
Helpers, Gatekeepers and the Well-Intentioned: The Mixed Blessings of HIV/AIDS Info(r)mediation in Rural Canada. Roma Harris, Tiffany Veinot, Leslie Bella, Irving Rootman and Judith Krajnak
CHAPTER 11:
Reflections on the Middle Space. Nadine Wathen, Roma Harris and Sally Wyatt.
Authors
NADINE WATHEN is Assistant Professor in the Faculty of Information and Media Studies, University of Western Ontario. She holds a Canadian Institutes of Health Research New Investigator Award to support her research, which includes: women's health, decision making, intervention research in the area of violence against women, translation and mobilization of research evidence to policy and practice, and projects on health information seeking and use.
SALLY WYATT is Professor of Digital Cultures in Development at Maastrict University, The Netherlands, and a Senior Research Fellow with the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences. Her research focuses on the relationship between technological and social change, especially on issues of social exclusion and inequality.
ROMA HARRIS is Professor in the Faculty of Information and Media Studies, University of Western Ontario, Canada. Currently, her work focuses on health information-seeking and she is leading the 'Rural HIV/AIDS Information Network Project' funded by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research.
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