Defining a Paradigm for the Dissemination of Health Information to Immigrant Populations at the Fletcher Free Library

In recent years, the surge of refugee families to the greater Burlington area has lead to a significant increase in the minority population of the city. The Fletcher Free Library (FFL) represents a potential health information resource for this population; it is, however, little utilized. Our project sought to target one of these minority populations, the Somali Bantu, and to diminish the barriers to the use of the FFL’s resources within the Somali population itself. To reduce barriers to access of health information by the Somali Bantu population, we educated the FFl’s reference librarians on Somali culture, developed a compendium of health information in both English and Somali for inclusion within the library’s collection, and staged a one-day intervention at the Community Health Center of Burlington to present the FFL as a potential source of health information for refugee populations. Somali Bantu use of the library, as well as reference librarian confidence in serving this minority population, was objectively assessed via preand post-interventional surveys. Introduction In order to address the aforementioned issues, we decided to focus upon the refugee Somali Bantu population within the Burlington area to establish a paradigm by which minority access to health information at the FFL might be increased. Due to recent war and famine in Somalia, Burlington has seen an influx of Somali Bantu refugees in recent years. As of 2006, the number of Somali Bantu living in Burlington was 282. To help ensure the FFL is able to better serve Burlington’s burgeoning minority populations, we sought first to identify barriers to the utilization of health information at the FFL by the Somali Bantu, including obstacles present at the library and within the Somali Bantu community at large. In order to address barriers at the FFL, we conducted a focused survey of the reference librarians to assess both Somali Bantu use of the library and the confidence with which librarians were able to direct Somali Bantu patrons to relevant health resources. In order to properly assess barriers to access in the Somali Bantu community, we collaborated with George Wright, the director of the Association of Africans Living in Vermont (AALV). This allowed us to identify relevant health topics to include in our reference packet for the library, as well as the physical, economical an cultural barriers to use of the FFL by the Somali Bantu. In order to overcome some of these barriers, we elected to conduct a community intervention to present health information directly and, moreover, to identify the FFL as a source of health information for the Somali Bantu. The impact of our intervention was assessed using the postintervention survey provided to the reference librarians at the FFL. Confidence in Understanding of Somali Bantu Culture