Combatting Health Information Injustices for Community-based Health Promotion: A Curricular Outline

Abstract

This paper addresses limitations of LIS education at the intersection of consumer health, community engagement, and amplifying marginalized voices. The authors propose a curricular outline for an MLIS course on community-based health promotion taught by community health workers (CHWs) who are LGBTQIA+. Queer theory and participatory learning inform this outline, serving as lenses for understanding health information injustices and leveraging community-based strengths to address them. The proposed curriculum utilizes existing research, training, and partnerships between the authors, CHW training specialists, and LGBTQIA+ CHWs. The latter received training using elements of the proposed curriculum and substantiated its offerings with their embodied knowledge and lived experiences. We plan on implementing this curricular outline in Spring 2023.

Transgender health information: assessing the quality of online resources

“…There is a lot of evidence illustrating the bitter encounters of transgender individuals with heterosexism, homophobia, overt discrimination and pathologization within healthcare settings. These factors have been identified as barriers for transgender individuals seeking health information from healthcare professionals (Kitzie et al, 2019b).…”