Read and Discuss

It's important to get the conversation started with your friends and relatives. The NNLM Reading Club has selected three books, written by medical and health experts, who share how important it is to find, use, and understand reliable information. Health literacy is important. It might even save your life. So read all about it starting this month.

Use Trustworthy Resources

Research is a quest for truth. The job of a researcher is to use the most trustworthy resources to report the most accurate information. The role of the consumer is to consult a variety of trustworthy sources to reduce the chance of relying on misinformation or biased opinions and facts.

Who can you trust? The National Library of Medicine, one of the 27 National Institutes of Health (NIH), has a mission to make evidence-based biomedical information equally available to health professionals and the public. To fulfill this goal, they developed a free and trustworthy consumer health information resource - MedlinePlus.gov.

MedlinePlus Guide to Healthy Web Surfing

An article that is published in a scholarly journal is peer-reviewed by experts in the field and scrutinized for accuracy by a team of editors and fact-checkers. Peer-reviewed, scholarly articles are very trustworthy.

To find scholarly biomedical literature, use PubMed, a free, online bibliographic resource. The database contains more than 30 million citations and abstracts developed and maintained by the NIH National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI) at the National Library of Medicine (NLM). Links to the full-text articles may be present when available from other sources, such as the publisher's website or PubMed Central (PMC).

Not Sure, Don't Share

Limiting the prevalence and impact of misinformation will help all of us make more informed decisions about our health and the health of our loved ones and communities.

The U.S. Surgeon General's A Community Toolkit for Addressing Health Misinformation (PDF) provides specific guidance and resources for health care providers, educators, librarians, faith leaders, and trusted community members to understand, identify, and stop the spread of health misinformation in their communities.

This you can be sure to share.

Learn Fact from Fiction

The Network of the National Library of Medicine created a fact sheet, A-B-C of Finding Trusted Health Information PDF (English and Español), to make fact-checking health information as easy as reciting the A-B-Cs.

The NIH National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health initiated a free and easy-to-use tool to help you better understand complex scientific topics that relate to health research so that you can discern what you hear and read and make well-informed decisions about your health. Know the Science, both in English and Español, features a variety of materials including interactive modules, quizzes, and videos to provide engaging, straightforward content.

Book

In Hype, Dr. Nina Shapiro distinguishes between falsehoods and the evidence-backed truth. In her work at Harvard and UCLA, with more than twenty years of experience in both clinical and academic medicine, she helps patients make important health decisions every day. She’s bringing those lessons to life here with a blend of science and personal stories to discuss her dramatic new definition of “a healthy life.” 

“Hype” is down-to-earth, informative, and your funnybone may even be tickled. - by Editor of Urbaniamag.com, June 14, 2018

A Publisher's Weekly Best of 2018

Hype: A Doctor's Guide to Medical Myths, Exaggerated Claims and Bad Advice-How to Tell What's Real and What's Not | Nina Shapiro, MD with Kristin Loberg | St Martin's Press | 2018 | 304 pages | ISBN: 978-1250149305 | WorldCat

Author

Dr. Nina L. Shapiro is the Director of Pediatric Otolaryngology and a Professor at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA. A skilled writer with a knack for communicating about health topics in a straightforward and compelling style, Dr. Shapiro is a prolific blogger and major contributor to academic publications with more than 80 peer-reviewed publications and more than 200 national and international scientific presentations to her credit. She is also a regular contributor to the award-winning educational website, www.kidsinthehouse.com, where she is featured in numerous videos on health-related topics from air purifiers to sleep apnea.

Official Website of Dr. Nina Shapiro

Interview

Book

Separate hype from health in this eye-opening exploration of our wellness-obsessed world -- from stress-induced symptom searching to "miracle cures" on social media. Health reporter Casey Gueren digs into what causes health anxiety and the tools we can all use to diminish its power. 

It's Probably Nothing: The Stress-Less Guide to Dealing with Health Anxiety, Wellness Fads, and Overhyped Headlines | Casey Gueren | Running Press | 2021 | 224 pages | ISBN: 978-0762471836 | WorldCat

Author

Casey Gueren is an award-winning health journalist, an experienced editor, and a strategic content manager.

I make content that's engaging, inclusive, and genuinely helpful. Because it should be easier to find simple, straightforward information about how to live well. - Casey Gueren

Official Website of Casey Gueren

Book

A collection of articles about medical myths, propagation and genesis of misinformation, rampant pseudoscience, and dark episodes of unethical medical practices including human medical experimentations and false publications in reputed journals. The forty-six “debunking” articles have a journalistic vibe to them and comprise of historical facts, quotations from physicians, scientists, patients, and administrators involved in various cases. This book is quite relevant in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic. 

Viral BS: Medical Myths and Why We Fall for Them | Seema Yasmin, MD | Johns Hopkins University Press | 2021 | 272 pages | ISBN: 978-1421440408 | WorldCat

Author

Director of the Stanford Health Communication Initiative, Dr. Seema Yasmin is an Emmy-award-winning journalist and former epidemiologist at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. She was previously a science correspondent at The Dallas Morning News and a medical analyst for CNN. She now teaches science journalism at Stanford University.

Official Website of Dr. Seema Yasmin

The Morning Show by Jana Rose Schleis. Wisconsin Public Radio, Friday, January 8, 2021