Meeting Health Information Needs Outside Of Healthcare

Opportunities and Challenges

Catherine Arnott Smith, Alla Keselman

• Publisher: Chandos Publishing
• Year: 2015
• Print ISBN: 9780081002483
• eBook ISBN: 9780081002599
• Topic: Medicine
• Subtopic: Public Health, Administration & Care

Meeting Health Information Needs Outside of Healthcare addresses the challenges and ethical dilemmas concerning the delivery of health information to the general public in a variety of non-clinical settings, both in-person and via information technology, in settings from public and academic libraries to online communities and traditional and social media channels.Professionals working in a range of fields, including librarianship, computer science and health information technology, journalism, and health communication can be involved in providing consumer health information, or health information targeting laypeople. This volume clearly examines the properties of health information that make it particularly challenging information to provide in diverse settings.- Addresses professional challenges and ethical problems of communicating health information to lay people in non-clinical settings- Focuses on health information as a challenge for different professionals providing health information in different settings- Emphasizes the shared challenges of information practice across different settings as well as those facing professionals in different roles

Contexts

Outline

8. Health information delivery outside the clinic in a developing nation: The Qatar Cancer Society in the State of Qatar

9. Health information and older adults

10. Re-envisioning the health information-seeking conversation: insights from a community center

11. For the mutual benefit: health information provision in the science classroom

12. “You will be glad you hung onto this quit”: sharing information and giving support when stopping smoking online

13. Health information in bits and bytes: considerations and challenges of digital health communication

14. Does specialization matter? How journalistic expertise explains differences in health-care coverage

8

Health information delivery outside the clinic in a developing nation

The Qatar Cancer Society in the State of Qatar

Ellen N. Sayed¹, and Alan S. Weber^{2 1}Director, Distributed eLibrary, Weill Cornell Medical College in Qatar, Doha, Qatar ²Premedical Department, Weill Cornell Medical School in Qatar, Doha, Qatar

Abstract

No reliable research is currently available on consumer health information seekers in Qatar, their reasons for seeking it, or the quality and extent of this information. Thus very basic questions about health information delivery outside of the clinical setting need to be answered, such as the role that libraries and health associations can play in educating the public about health issues. This chapter provides a case study of one of the largest and most active nonclinical health associations in Qatar, The Qatar Cancer Society (QCS), a charitable nongovernmental organization established in 1997. Specialized librarians and libraries can potentially play an important role in information provision on health matters outside of the clinical setting and in collaboration with health organizations such as QCS.

Keywords

Cancer; Consumer health; Health information literacy; Medical libraries; Qatar Cancer Society; State of Qatar

8.1. Introduction and background

This chapter investigates the provision of nonclinical health information resources, provided to consumers, in the developing nation of the State of Qatar by examining the information-oriented activities of the Qatar Cancer Society (QCS) in the context of neighboring countries with similar culture and belief systems. The Society provides Internet and paper-based information on cancer, support services (both emotional and financial), community services, and referrals to other services for all residents of Qatar. The Society arose from a need to provide cancer information and counseling to supplement the overburdened public hospital medical system, Hamad Medical Corporation (HMC), after Qatar’s population grew from 800,000 to 2.1 million within one decade. Counseling and psychiatric services are in short supply, with only 25 attending psychiatrists and 63 beds in Qatar (Kronfol, Ghuloum, & Weber, 2013). Very little scholarship exists on the role of these kinds of institutions within the health care systems of the Arabian (Persian) Gulf or the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region. The chapter also outlines the important role that specialized libraries can potentially play in information provision on health matters outside of the clinical setting and in collaboration with health organizations such as QCS.

Specialized medical libraries and medical schools are a relatively new phenomenon in the Arabian Gulf, and their full potential as a health care partner with hospitals and private practices has not yet been realized. Before Qatar’s only medical school—the Weill Cornell Medical School in Qatar—opened in 2001–2002, most physicians were expatriates trained in Egypt, Lebanon, India, and Syria. In 2008, only 14% of medical professionals in Qatar were Qatari nationals (HMC, 2008, p. 2008). In addition, health associations such as QCS have recently gained increased importance due to the evolution of modern health care internationally, which is now emphasizing a multidisciplinary approach and patient-centered care. In this new model, nonclinical health partners contribute to patient well-being, patient education, and counseling to help cancer sufferers and their families understand their disease and choose the right treatment and follow-up care options.

The Interprofessional Education model—in which students are trained in mixed professional groups to recognize and appreciate the different competencies on the health care team—is growing in popularity in medical education and has been studied in depth. A World Health Organization (WHO) report pointed out that “[C]ollaborative practice happens when multiple health workers from different professional backgrounds work together with patients, families, caregivers and communities to deliver the highest quality of care. It allows health workers to engage any individual whose skills can help achieve local health goals” (2010, p. 7). This approach opens up further resources for the patient, the patient’s family, and the community and allows further scope for contributions from nontraditional health information providers, such as nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), nonprofit organizations, public and academic libraries, Internet-based companies, publishers, alternative healers, and nonclinical organizations such as the QCS.

8.2. Qatar

Qatar is one of the smallest countries in the world by land area (11,571 km²), similar in size to Gambia and Vanuatu, and located on the Arabian side of the Persian (Arabian) Gulf. The nation is situated on the Arabian Peninsula along with Saudi Arabia, Oman, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), and Yemen. Qatar is part of a political alliance called the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) along with the countries of Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates, who all share a similar Muslim cultural heritage. Qatar, which joined the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries in 1961, has been a substantial producer of petroleum since the 1960s, but in addition was also the third largest producer of natural gas in the world in 2012 at 160 billion cubic meters. Qatar is also the second largest exporter of gas after the Russian Federation (IEA, 2013). The high price of hydrocarbons in the last decade coupled with Qatar’s enormous reserves has resulted in extraordinary GDP growth and government financial surpluses. While much of these surpluses have been invested abroad, large internal investments have also been made in infrastructure, health care, social services, education, and basic government salaries and benefits. Thus Qatar is in the unique situation of possessing ample public health funds coupled with leadership who are intent on improving health indicators and health outcomes for both citizens and expatriates through upgrading medical infrastructure, training personnel in its newly launched medical, allied health, and nursing schools, and launching informational health campaigns.

8.2.1. Qatar Vision 2030

To move the economy away from natural resources production toward the creation of knowledge, and to build what has been called a “knowledge economy,” the State of Qatar has embarked on a strategic development plan entitled Qatar Vision 2030. A knowledge economy is based on developing salable intellectual properties—patents, rights, and proprietary processes—and obviously rests on the pillars of education, research and human capacity development to foster innovation and new ideas (General Secretariat for Development Planning (GSDP), 2008, p. 6). The State of Qatar has developed a coherent national strategy to carry out a variety of knowledge economy projects, many of which are underway and producing tangible results. In the past decade, the State of Qatar has overhauled its K-12 educational system; established its first medical school—a branch campus of Weill Medical College of Cornell University located in New York, NY (WCMC-Q) as well as a nursing school (University of Calgary, Qatar); inaugurated a national research funding agency called Qatar National Research Fund; and established the technology and science business incubator Qatar Science and Technology Park (QSTP).

Thus Qatar’s newly launched National Cancer Strategy and Qatar National Cancer Research Strategy issued by the Supreme Council of Health (SCH) form part of the larger developmental vision of Qatar 2030: not only to improve health outcomes in Qatar, but also to provide a badly needed scientific evidence base for understanding the genetic, behavioral, and environmental factors responsible for cancer in Arab and Qatari patient populations. Part of this evidence base includes research into socioeconomic factors and cancer patient behaviors, including their knowledge of risk factors; information-seeking behaviors; information provision; and the role of allied health sciences and nonclinical health care partners in providing more satisfactory outcomes, not only in the decrease of morbidity and mortality, but also in the improvement of the patient experience. Qatar is one of the few nations in the world with a clearly defined comprehensive national cancer strategy with targeted numerical outcomes indicators, assigned roles for various ministries, agencies, and individual institutions, and a final target date of 2016 for implementation of all new cancer policies. The Cancer Strategy even contains suggested penalties for noncompliant stakeholders and for missing targeted outcomes. As a preexisting cancer organization in Qatar, the QCS was integrated into the National Cancer Strategy primarily in the roles of volunteer coordination, patient education, and counseling.

8.2.2. Demography

The citizens of Qatar—numbering between 250,000 and 300,000 official passport holders—are primarily Sunni Muslims with origins in the Nejd and Rub al Khali (Empty Quarter Desert) regions of Saudi Arabia, the Persian Empire, or from freed East African and Sudanese slaves. Qatar abolished its slave trade in 1952 under pressure from the British government who controlled Qatar’s external affairs until 1971. Recent genetic testing has confirmed the existence of three main subtypes of Arab, African, and Indo-Iranian origin in Qatar. The demographic structure of Qatar is one of its unique fea...

Table of contents

• Cover image
• Title page
• Table of Contents
• Series Editor
• Copyright
• About the authors
• Editors’ foreword
• Acknowledgments
• Overview
• Libraries
• Contexts
• Afterword
• Index