Public health practitioners' information access and use patterns in the Maryland (USA) public health departments of Anne Arundel and Wicomico Counties

Purpose: To increase understanding of the information needs and use of public health practitioners. Setting: From June 2005 to May 2006, the library offered a course in public health information resources to eighteen practitioners in two counties, access to the library's licensed electronic resources through a tailored web portal, and consulting services. Evaluation method: We combined usage statistics from the web portal, self-report and observational data collected during training and shadowing of participants. Conclusions: The data from this project indicate that usage of licensed information resources and services is infrequent but broad ranging. A few users register at the high end of the usage range, but one use of one high quality article can have a significant impact on policy decisions. Time and competing responsibilities often constrain the retrieval and use of resources for evidence-based decision making and an informationist or power-user model may be more appropriate than training all practitioners to integrate searching into their workflow. This study indicates (i) that evidence-based public health practice requires seamless and broadly based information access; and (ii) that the currently existing patchwork does not support the level of use or take into account the time constraints of information needs for public health practice.