Information for health and human development

Information is one of the most powerful instruments of change known to man. It can be used to relieve much pain and suffering, because the basic infrastructure of any successful enterprise is based not only on the management of the physical, financial, and human resources but also on information resources. This paper describes the relationship between health and human development and outlines the roles health sciences librarians might consider in managing information to ensure health, to assist not only medical scientists but also the powerful members of the community. No persons should be hampered in their ability to make decisions about health matters because they did not have access to information librarians have at their disposal.