35 - Forging Partnerships for Statewide Health Literacy: One State's Experience

Background: The Utah Health Literacy Coalition was originally formed to meet a need recognized among state-based health information practitioners to expand their influence and further the cause of health literacy. Activities within the group of about 20 members traditionally involved networking and the informal sharing of best practices and programming ideas implemented in their respective organizations. The coalition set out to build capacities by formalizing sustainable relationships and expanding programming and services. Members wished to align public libraries with knowledge and resources available through medical libraries as well as public and private health organizations.

Description: The coalition secured funding from NNLM to convene a facilitated workshop with the goal of developing a path toward a plan to address these issues. The state library association served as fiduciary for the grant. The half-day session addressed mission, vision and values, seeking to determine collective organizational priorities and direction from the range of stakeholders. Consultations with similar organizations in other states, a benchmarking exercise extending CDC’s list of state level health coalitions, and a survey of invited participants preceded the day of the workshop. The online workshop itself started with a presentation by health information specialists from another state and a review of the survey results, then launched into a wide-ranging discussion that explored potential goals and priorities for the coalition. Organizers documented the conversation and analyzed it in a final report to the coalition membership.

Conclusion: The workshop had a mix of successful outcomes and areas where further work is needed. Successes included the following:


- Participants agreed that a solid structure and strategic plan will help the coalition with objectives, especially those concerning training of library staff in health information skills.
- Health literacy practitioners from two states shared best practices.
- Participants agreed that the organization would need to focus on four areas: training, resources, networking, and advocacy and policy.
- The workshop identified key sustainability goals in the short, medium and long terms.

Further efforts are needed to address how to identify and target prospective training candidates, and to better incorporate principles of diversity, equity and inclusion into the plan.