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Improving Access To Credible And Relevant Information For Public Health Professionals: A Qualitative Study Of Information Needs In Communicable Disease Control, Nancy R. Lapelle, E. Hatheway Simpson, Roger S. Luckmann, Elaine Russo Martin
Improving Access To Credible And Relevant Information For Public Health Professionals: A Qualitative Study Of Information Needs In Communicable Disease Control, Nancy R. Lapelle, E. Hatheway Simpson, Roger S. Luckmann, Elaine Russo Martin
E. Hatheway Simpson
In order to understand the information needs and the current and ideal approaches to information access in one major area of public health, semi-structured key informant interviews were conducted with 12 communicable disease control public health professionals in Massachusetts at their worksite. Examples of the types of information they commonly accessed and how it was accessed were solicited and/or observed where feasible. The interviews were transcribed and analyzed thematically. Information needs ranged from breaking news (e.g. epidemiology of emerging disease outbreaks) and untested programmatic ideas (e.g. how to handle prevention and treatment of West Nile Virus and SARS) to the …