Library support for clinical and translational research: research data management and data science

Objective: Librarians supporting Yale\u27s CTSA grantee, the Yale Center for Clinical Investigation, found that research data support is needed at multiple stages in the clinical research lifecycle. This poster highlights the research data needs of clinical and translational research staff and resources that medical librarians can leverage to support them. Methods: Through discussions with project managers, we identified some eighteen research support needs which are presented by clinical and translational research projects, and which library resources can meet. Several of these research support needs are related to research data management and data science. - A sink-or-swim style of research training, in terms of everything from literature searching to research data management - Confusion about data sharing requirements from funders and journals - Questions about how best to measure certain outcomes, which can be answered, in some cases, with reference to Common Data Elements - Missing or incomplete preregistrations, which are important because preregistration is an important tool to promote transparency - Questions about identifying sites, through Census data and GIS, where diverse study participants could be recruited Results: We are developing cross-training for librarians, and workshops for CTSA staff, to meet these needs. Conclusions: We hope that, after iterating versions of these workshops with CTSA staff, we will be able to share helpful insights about library support for translational research in the context of data management and data science. These findings will also inform our approach to data management training for residents and clinicians, as well as students

The Future Comes One Week at a Time: Data Outreach at Cushing/Whitney Medical Library

OBJECTIVE In 2017 and 2018, Cushing/Whitney Medical Library has celebrated data weeks in conjunction with three grassroots projects: Love Your Data Week 2017, Love Data Week 2018, and Endangered Data Week 2018. This poster investigates the costs and benefits of data outreach events, including workshops, tours, panels, user testing sessions, and more; the poster also describes marketing failures and successes. To what extent has this data outreach program achieved its four goals: raising the profile of the medical library as a campus data resource, helping users better document their data, collecting data on users\u27 experience of library data services, and increasing awareness of the importance of Census data for health services research? METHODS Over two years, we have designed, implemented, and assessed data outreach programming targeted specifically at medical campus constituencies. Some events were designed for data weeks, such as a panel on Census data, social justice, and social determinants of health during Endangered Data Week 2018. Other events came from our regular menu of data-related workshops. Some successful 2017 events are being repeated in 2018, such as a data documentation-themed tour of the Cushing Tumor Registry. Less successful 2017 events evolved significantly or disappeared in 2018, and some 2018 events are entirely new, such as user testing sessions for a new research data management services website. To assess this outreach program, we use event participation statistics, surveys, and social media metrics. Web analytics are part of the assessment program in 2018. RESULTS In 2017, two medical library staffers spent ten hours (preparation and contact time), on three successful events, in one week, with more than forty in-person participants. In 2018, four medical librarians have planned ten events, across two weeks, with valuable contributions from external partners, other units at the university, and additional medical library staff. CONCLUSIONS As the two 2018 data weeks fall in February, full results will be reported at the symposium, along with lessons learned about effective marketing and project management for data outreach. Our findings will inform -- and, we hope, inspire -- data outreach programming at medical libraries and academic libraries with similar patron profiles

Health effects of Indigenous language use and revitalization: a realist review

Background: Indigenous populations across the world are more likely to suffer from poor health outcomes when compared to other racial and ethnic groups. Although these disparities have many sources, one protective factor that has become increasingly apparent is the continued use and/or revitalization of traditional Indigenous lifeways: Indigenous language in particular. This realist review is aimed at bringing together the literature that addresses effects of language use and revitalization on mental and physical health. Methods: Purposive bibliographic searches on Scopus were conducted to identify relevant publications, further augmented by forward citation chaining. Included publications (qualitative and quantitative) described health outcomes for groups of Indigenous people who either did or did not learn and/or use their ancestral language. The geographical area studied was restricted to the Americas, Australia or New Zealand. Publications that were not written in English, Spanish, French, Portuguese or German were excluded. A realist approach was followed to identify positive, neutral or negative effects of language use and/or acquisition on health, with both qualitative and quantitative measures considered. Results: The bibliographic search yielded a total of 3508 possible publications of which 130 publications were included in the realist analysis. The largest proportion of the outcomes addressed in the studies (62.1%) reported positive effects. Neutral outcomes accounted for 16.6% of the reported effects. Negative effects (21.4%) were often qualifed by such issues as possible cultural use of tobacco, testing educational outcomes in a student\u27s second language, and correlation with socioeconomic status (SES), health access, or social determinants of health; it is of note that the positive correlations with language use just as frequently occurred with these issues as the negative correlations did. Conclusions: Language use and revitalization emerge as protective factors in the health of Indigenous populations. Benefits of language programs in tribal and other settings should be considered a cost-effective way of improving outcomes in multiple domains

Knowledge Organization Systems for Systematic Chemical Assessments

BACKGROUND: Although the implementation of systematic review and evidence mapping methods stands to improve the transparency and accuracy of chemical assessments, they also accentuate the challenges that assessors face in ensuring they have located and included all the evidence that is relevant to evaluating the potential health effects an exposure might be causing. This challenge of information retrieval can be characterized in terms of "semantic" and "conceptual" factors that render chemical assessments vulnerable to the streetlight effect. OBJECTIVES: This commentary presents how controlled vocabularies, thesauruses, and ontologies contribute to overcoming the streetlight effect in information retrieval, making up the key components of Knowledge Organization Systems (KOSs) that enable more systematic access to assessment-relevant information than is currently achievable. The concept of Adverse Outcome Pathways is used to illustrate what a general KOS for use in chemical assessment could look like. DISCUSSION: Ontologies are an underexploited element of effective knowledge organization in the environmental health sciences. Agreeing on and implementing ontologies in chemical assessment is a complex but tractable process with four fundamental steps. Successful implementation of ontologies would not only make currently fragmented information about health risks from chemical exposures vastly more accessible, it could ultimately enable computational methods for chemical assessment that can take advantage of the full richness of data described in natural language in primary studies. https://doi.org/10.1289/EHP6994

Substance use and substance use disorder, in relation to COVID-19: protocol for a scoping review

Background The COVID-19 pandemic is creating severe issues for healthcare and broad social structures, exposing societal vulnerabilities. Among the populations affected by COVID-19 are people engaged in substance use, such as people who smoke; vape (e-cigarette use); use opioids, cannabis, alcohol, or psychoactive prescription drugs; or have a substance use disorder (SUD). Monitoring substance use and SUD during the pandemic is essential, as people who engage in substance use or present with SUD are at greater risk for COVID-19, and the economic and social changes resulting from the pandemic may aggravate SUD. There have been several reviews focused on COVID-19 in relation to substance use and SUD. Reviews generally did not consider on a large range of substance use variants or SUDs. We plan a scoping review that seeks to fill gaps in our current understanding of substance use and SUD, in the COVID-19 era. Methods A scoping review focused on substance use and SUD, in relation to COVID-19, will be conducted. We will search (from January 2020 onwards) Cumulative Index to Nursing and Allied Health Literature, Africa-Wide Information, Web of Science Core Collection, Embase, Global Health, WHO Global Literature on Coronavirus Disease Database, WHO Global Index Medicus, PsycINFO, PubMed, Middle Eastern Central Asian Studies, CINAHL Complete, and Sociological Abstracts. Grey literature will be identified using Disaster Lit, Google Scholar, HSRProj, governmental websites, and clinical trials registries (e.g., ClinicalTrial.gov , World Health Organization, International Clinical Trials Registry Platform and International Standard Randomized Con-trolled Trial Number registry). Study selection will conform to Joanna Briggs Institute Reviewers’ Manual 2015 Methodology for JBI Scoping Reviews. Only English language, original studies investigating substance use and SUD, in relation to COVID-19 in all populations and settings, will be considered for inclusion. Two reviewers will independently screen all citations, full-text articles, and abstract data. A narrative summary of findings will be conducted. Data analysis will involve quantitative (e.g., frequencies) and qualitative (e.g., content and thematic analysis) methods. Discussion Original research is urgently needed to mitigate the risks of COVID-19 on substance use and SUD. The planned scoping review will help to address this gap. Systematic review registration Open Science Framework (osf/io/tzgm5)

Sexual health and COVID-19: protocol for a scoping review.

BACKGROUND: Global responses to the COVID-19 pandemic have exposed and exacerbated existing socioeconomic and health inequities that disproportionately affect the sexual health and well-being of many populations, including people of color, ethnic minority groups, women, and sexual and gender minority populations. Although there have been several reviews published on COVID-19 and health disparities across various populations, none has focused on sexual health. We plan to conduct a scoping review that seeks to fill several of the gaps in the current knowledge of sexual health in the COVID-19 era. METHODS: A scoping review focusing on sexual health and COVID-19 will be conducted. We will search (from January 2020 onwards) CINAHL, Africa-Wide Information, Web of Science Core Collection, Embase, Gender Studies Database, Gender Watch, Global Health, WHO Global Literature on Coronavirus Disease Database, WHO Global Index Medicus, PsycINFO, MEDLINE, and Sociological Abstracts. Grey literature will be identified using Disaster Lit, Google Scholar, governmental websites, and clinical trials registries (e.g., ClinicalTrial.gov , World Health Organization, International Clinical Trials Registry Platform, and International Standard Randomized Controlled Trial Number Registry). Study selection will conform to the Joanna Briggs Institute Reviewers' Manual 2015 Methodology for JBI Scoping Reviews. Only English language, original studies will be considered for inclusion. Two reviewers will independently screen all citations, full-text articles, and abstract data. A narrative summary of findings will be conducted. Data analysis will involve quantitative (e.g., frequencies) and qualitative (e.g., content and thematic analysis) methods. DISCUSSION: Original research is urgently needed to mitigate the risks of COVID-19 on sexual health. The planned scoping review will help to address this gap. SYSTEMATIC REVIEW REGISTRATIONS: Systematic Review Registration: Open Science Framework osf/io/PRX8E

Impact of educational interventions on adolescent attitudes and knowledge regarding vaccination: A pilot study

© 2018 Carolan et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. Background Current immunisation levels in England currently fall slightly below the threshold recommended by the World Health Organization, and the three-year trend for vaccination uptake is downwards. Attitudes towards vaccination can affect future decisions on whether or not to vaccinate, and this can have significant public health implications. Interventions can impact future vaccination decisions, and these interventions can take several forms. Relatively little work has been reported on the use of vaccination interventions in young people, who form the next generation of individuals likely to make vaccination decisions. Method We investigated the impact of two different types of educational intervention on attitudes towards vaccination in young people in England. A cohort of young people (n = 63) was recruited via a local school. This group was divided into three sub-groups; one (n = 21) received a presentation-based intervent ion, one (n = 26) received an interactive simulation-based intervention, and the third (n = 16) received no intervention. Participants supplied information on (1) their attitudes towards vaccination, and (2) their information needs and views on personal choice concerning vaccination, at three time points: immediately before and after the intervention, and after six months. Results Neither intervention had a significant effect on participants’ attitudes towards vaccination. However, the group receiving the presentation-based intervention saw a sustained uplift in confidence about information needs, which was not observed in the simulation-based intervention group. Discussion Our findings with young people are consistent with previous work on vaccination interventions aimed at adults, which have shown limited effectiveness, and which can actually reduce intention to vaccinate. Our findings on the most effective mode of delivery for the intervention should inform future discussion in the growing “games for health” domain, which proposes the use of interactive digital resources in healthcare education