Book Clubs: Vehicles for Starting Health Conversations

Background: This session will feature a presentation by the team behind a national campaign to encourage reading and discussion of books on health-related topics. Rather than focusing on imparting predesignated facts or engaging in the kinds of interventions of other public health campaigns, the program aimed to get public library patrons, especially those in underserved communities, thinking and talking about health issues with the aid of reliable information. Organizers created ready-to-use health literacy toolkits to help libraries support health information needs in their communities through book discussion groups.

Description: The team selected three book titles each month across a variety of genres: fiction, nonfiction, memoir or graphic medicine. The project emphasized subjects of interest to communities underserved in healthcare and health information. Topics included healthy aging, heart health, racism and health, LQBTQ health, substance abuse and several others.

The team shipped free book kits to eligible libraries upon request, accompanying them with discussion guides, promotional materials and evidence-based health information. The collateral materials also became available for download from the project’s website. The project shipped more than 730 free, ready-to-use book kits over 17 months.

After shipping operations shut down because of COVID-19 concerns, organizers pivoted from concentrating on print book kits to facilitating eBook club discussions and virtual events. The team is now offering featured online author talks to keep selected health topics in front of library patrons.

Conclusion: The campaign represents an innovation to one of librarianship’s most popular and time-honored programs, the book club. Through the fun and intimacy of book discussions, readers can widen their perspectives on health and wellness topics while also receiving quality health information to make informed decisions about their health or that of a loved one. The approach is well-suited to partnerships between health sciences and public libraries that focus on community engagement. The presenters will share evaluation metrics from the program, including topics and titles most frequently selected by libraries.