Rethinking How to Create a Health Disparity Tutorial
Lisa McGuire, MLIS
Health Sciences Libraries, University of Minnesota, Twin Cities
BACKGROUND
In 2009, I was awarded a three-month professional
development leave to develop an online tutorial on how to
research a health disparity topic.
Training health science professionals in how to research a
health disparity topic is important, as eliminating health
disparities is a major goal of public health work in the United
States as evidenced by the Healthy People 2020 objectives.
DEVELOPMENT
The tutorial development process consisted of these steps:
•Deciding which software platform worked best for delivering
content and creating learning objects
•Creating content based on a health disparity case example
Software Choice
The initial decision in this tutorial creation was deciding which
software platform to use. Originally, I intended to use
Camtasia (TechSmith) software to create narrated,
screencasts. Ultimately, I decided that I wanted the tutorial to
be more user-driven and decided to create the tutorial using
Lectora software (Trivantis) instead.
Benefits of using Lectora:
Source: Healthy People.gov homepage. Available at:
http://www.healthypeople.gov/2020/default.aspx
Prior to 2008, MEDLINE did not include any MeSH headings
that directly addressed ‘health disparities’ as a concept.
Searching for literature on health disparities required a range
of concepts/keywords on multiple aspects such as race,
ethnicity, gender, and socioeconomic factors that novice
researchers may not utilize effectively.
• Available license from University Libraries
•Technical support from University Libraries staff who have
used Lectora
•Ability to ‘clone’ other tutorials within Lectora in order to keep
same look/feel around graphics, color choices, text location
etc.
The major objectives for this project were:
•Investigate different methods of presenting content as a
tutorial using various software options
•Create content that utilized a concrete example of a health
disparity issue that could be useful to multiple groups of health
profession students and/or junior faculty
•Create content that could be relatively easy to maintain
•Promote tutorial to various groups at the University of
Minnesota
•Rethink, revise, repeat as necessary!
RESEARCH POSTER PRESENTATION DESIGN © 2011
www.PosterPresentations.com
The tutorial is available within a guide on the Bio-Medical
Library’s web page entitled: Health Disparities
The case study example used in this tutorial is to examine
disparities amongst African-Americans around stroke
symptom knowledge.
Learning Objectives:
RETHINK & REFINE
Next steps for improving the tutorial include:
•Rethink tutorial software, perhaps using Captivate
In addition to the tutorial, the guide also includes a definition
of health disparities, information on why searching these
topics can be difficult and links to other recent information
sources.
•Refine video on PubMed searching by using new software or
Camtasia
http://z.umn.edu/33d
•Create an additional video on the MeSH browser and how to
utilize for efficient searching
The tutorial consists of 20 slides describing these concepts:
1. Health disparity definition
2. Introduction to PICO as a searching framework
3. Introduction to PubMed as a source for health disparity
journal literature
4. Application of case study to PICO framework
5. Short video (made with Jing) on how to search PubMed
with health disparity case study
6. Introduction to MeSH
7. MeSH terms that are applicable to health disparity research
8. Contact information for liaison librarian
9. Tutorial feedback
Content Creation
The first step in the content process was to develop a case
study that could be used for a PubMed search example.
OBJECTIVES
TUTORIAL STRUCTRE
FEEDBACK
Promotion of the tutorial was done to faculty and students in
the School of Public Health (SPH) at the University of
Minnesota.
A recent survey (April 2011) sent to SPH faculty and staff
gauged how successfully the tutorial met the learning
objectives to how to identify health disparity journal literature,
how to use PICO to create a searchable question, how to use
PubMed to identify relevant journal articles, and expand
knowledge of valuable MeSH terms for researching a health
disparity topic.
This survey response rate was very low (n=14) and
nonscientific, yet most respondents felt that it met the learning
objectives and that they would recommend the tutorial to a
colleague.
•Track web statistics using Google Analytics to see monthly
stats on page
•Incorporate tutorial into more Library Course Pages
(customized web pages geared to specific U of M courses)
where health disparity research is a major learning objective
FOR MORE INFORMATION:
Use your smartphone to take a picture of the QR code you
see below.
It will take you to the Health Disparity guide where the tutorial
is located.