Essential Health Links: About

Essential Health Links provides a Gateway to more than 700 selected websites for health professionals and researchers, medical library communities, publishers, and NGOs in developing and emerging countries. Compiled, updated and maintained by Lenny Rhine, University Librarian Emeritus, Health Science Center Library, University of Florida (e-mail Lenny here) and edited by Neil Pakenham-Walsh, coordinator of the Global Healthcare Information Network (e-mail Neil here). (See the Biographical Information below)

Page Contents
Structure and using Essential Health Links
Criteria for selection and evaluation
Editorial and advisory groups
Important notes 
Background
A template for customisation by others
Feedback 
Compilers' Biographical Information 

Structure and using Essential Health Links

Essential Health Links consists of three sections. Each section has several pages of hyperlinks, arranged alphabetically. Each hyperlink carries a brief description of the site concerned. The three sections are:

  1. General Health Resources (Search Engines, Gateways (global and regional), Bibliographic Databases/Abstracts/Clinical Trials Databases, Dictionaries/Glossaries/Disease Classifications, Email Lists, Evidence Based Medicine, Fulltext E-books, Fulltext E-Journals, Health News, Health Organizations, Image Collections, Medical Education and Clinical Skills, Medical Informatics/Telemedicine/E-Health, and WHO sites).
  2. Specific Health Resources (e.g. Anaesthesiology, Basic Sciences, Dermatology, HIV/AIDS, Malaria, Mental Health and Psychiatry, Pharmacology and Prescribing, Reproductive Health, Tropical Medicine and Infectious Diseases, etc.)
  3. Library and Publishing Support (Information for Development, Internet Skills, Publishing Tools)
  • Sites that have a specific focus on users in developing countries are marked with (LDC) after the title
  • Sites recommended by the compiler as a top 20 General Resource are marked with the following symbol: *
  • Sites in languages other than English are indicated with the language.

Criteria for selection and evaluation

The Essential Heath Links sites are selected and evaluated according to criteria adapted from the evaluation questions developed by the Special Advisory Group on Evaluation for BIOME/OMNI (currently INTUTE), a gateway to Internet resources in the health and life sciences.

Selection Criteria: The first essential criterion is that the site contains information that is relevant for developing and emerging countries. In addition, selected sites must fulfill at least five of the following six criteria:

  • Authority: Does the information come from a reliable source?
  • Coverage: Does the resource cover the subject adequately?
  • Presentation: Is the source professionally presented? Are there any typographical or grammatical errors?
  • Currency: Is the information kept up-to-date?
  • Cost: Is the resource free of charge?
  • Freedom of use: Can the contents be freely adapted and redistributed to local end users?

Evaluation Criteria: The following criteria are reviewed and summarised, where necessary, in the descriptive section of each link:

  • Scope:
    • Who is the intended audience and does this affect the suitability of the resource for inclusion?
    • What is the range of different subjects covered in the area?
    • Are there links to further information?
  • Accessibility:
    • Is the resource frequently unavailable due to server unreliability or overwhelming demand?
    • Are large and unnecessary graphics used which inhibit ease of access?
    • Is special hardware or software required to access the resource?
    • Do users need to register to use the resource and, if so, is this free of charge and easy to do?
    • What languages are available?
  • Design and layout:
    • Is the resource well designed?
    • Is the design consistent between different parts of the same resource?
    • Are there any aids to finding information, such as site map, index, menu system or search facility?
    • Advertising used? Is this appropriate or does it detract from the value of the information?

Users should note that the compilers do not have sufficient resources to evaluate the scientific accuracy of each website that is included in Essential Health Links. The emphasis is on selecting websites that contain relevant health information for developing and emerging countries. While a set of criteria are employed, the evaluation of each specific website is not exhaustive and there is no guarantee of a high level of accuracy for all the information in the links. The addresses of the links are checked for accuracy approximately every ten weeks and the date of the last update for each page is shown at the foot of that page.

Editorial and advisory groups

The descriptions on Essential Health Links are written and compiled by Lenny Rhine and edited by Neil Pakenham-Walsh, Global Healthcare Information Network (see biographies below). The development and maintenance of Essential Health Links is facilitated and monitored by a voluntary Advisory Group coordinated by Christine Kanyengo, medical librarian at the University of Zambia.

The Members of the Advisory Group advise on ways to improve the usefulness, reliability and relevancy of the resource.

  • Advisory Group Coordinator:
    • Christine Wamu Kanyengo (Medical Librarian, University of Zambia School of Medicine)
  • Advisory Group Members:
    • Anne Abduhlrahman (Medical Librarian, Faculty of Medicine, Bamako, Mali)
    • Ibrahima Bob (AHILA President, Senegal)
    • Nancy Kamau (Medical Librarian, Kenya Medical Research Institute, Nairobi)
    • Maria Musoke, Ph.D. (Librarian, Makerere University Libraries, Uganda)
    • Erica Van der Westhuizen (Veterinary Librarian, University of Pretoria, South Africa)

Some of the individual pages of Essential Health Links are advised by Subject Expert Advisers who provide guidance on the content of specific topics.

  • Subject Expert Advisers:
    • Cardiovascular Diseases: Catherine Coleman, Editor in Chief, ProCOR, Lown Cardiovascular Research Foundation, USA
    • Dermatology: Rebecca Penzer, International Skin Care Group, UK
    • Environmental Health: Stephanie Holmgren, Library, National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, USA
    • Eye Health: Frank Magupa, OptoNews Africa Inc., Australia
    • Mental Health and Psychiatry: Vikram Patel, Senior Lecturer, London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, UK
    • Nutrition: Ann Burgess, freelance nutrition consultant; member of the Nutrition Society, UK and Marlou Bijlsma, nutrition consultant
    • Specific Health Resources: Ruiling Guo, Health Sciences Library, Idaho State University, USA
    • Tropical Medicine and Infectious Diseases: Dirk Schoonbaert, Library, Prince Leopold Institute of Tropical Medicine, Belgium

The Advisory Group works on a voluntary basis. The Members are currently all from Africa, but we would be keen to welcome new Members from Asia, Latin America and the Newly Independent States. We also welcome applications from people who would like to be Subject Expert Advisers. For further details, or to discuss the possibility of joining the group, please contact Christine Wamu Kanyengo (Members) or Lenny Rhine (Subject Expert Advisers).

Important notes 

  • Essential Health Links is seen as an interim solution to help address the increasing demand in developing and emerging countries for easy access to relevant, reliable health information on the Internet. Essential Health Links has been produced with minimal resources and is not intended to be definitive nor comprehensive. It is hoped the site will encourage the collaborative development of more comprehensive sites by others.
  • In the long term, health professionals in developing and emerging countries require an international collaborative effort to deliver comprehensive and quality-controlled gateway services in consultation with end-users. We encourage international cooperation among existing and planned initiatives, so that long-term solutions can be identified, implemented, evaluated, and improved.
  • These links are designed to facilitate access to a range of information for health professionals and health information workers in developing and emerging countries. They are not designed for use by the general public.
  • This site does not host any advertisements or receive any funding from advertising.
  • Confidentiality of data relating to individual patients and visitors to this site, including their identity, is respected by this website. The site owners undertake to honour or exceed the legal requirements of medical/health information privacy that apply in the country and state where the website and mirror sites are located.

Background


"Essential Health Links allows health information specialists to continue and expand work at national and international level. I no longer need to spend time and resources on search engines." - Ibrahima Bob (Former President, Association for Health Information and Libraries in Africa).

Essential Health Links is adapted for international use from the original gateway provided by the University of Zambia School of Medicine Library (UNZA). In 1997, the UNZA gateway was developed by UNZA staff in conjunction with Lenny Rhine, University Librarian Emeritus, the University of Florida.

The current version initially was developed with the assistance of the International Network for the Availability of Scientific Publications (INASP) and was located on this organization's platform from January 2002 to August 2007. We are grateful for INASP's support during this five year period.

As of August 2007, AED/SatelLife became the principal sponsor of the project and the gateway moved to its current location. It is one of the components of the AED/Satellife Global Health Information Network. We are pleased with this new relationship that will benefit the project and the users throughout the world.

A template for customisation by others

Essential Health Links is offered freely for use as a template by others (e.g. medical school libraries, ministries of health, publishers, libraries, NGOs) to develop customised gateways on their own websites. This approach should reduce the risk of duplication of effort while maximising the usefulness of the gateway for specific target groups.

Feedback

Help us to improve Essential Health Links. Please e-mail your comments and suggestions to eh-links@healthnet.org

Compilers' Biographical Information

Lenny Rhine, PhD; is Emeritus University Librarian at the University of Florida. Since 1992, Lenny has worked with health libraries in developing countries and conducted numerous presentations and training workshops particularly in conjunction with the Association for Health Information and Libraries in Africa and HINARI. He has been the compiler of the Essential Health Links since its inception in January 2002. Currently, Lenny is the coordinator of the Elsevier-funded "E-Library Training Grant" for the Librarians Without Borders, Medical Library Association, USA.  This grant primarily facilitates training for the HINARI project.

Neil Pakenham-Walsh, MD; is coordinator of the Global Healthcare Information Network and the global campaign Healthcare Information For All by 2015. He has a special interest in the availability and use of relevant, reliable healthcare information in developing countries, especially at primary and district levels. He qualified as a doctor in 1983 and worked for 6 years in NHS hospital medicine, including 2 years in paediatrics. In 1990 he moved into medical publishing and worked with the World Health Organization, Medicine Digest, and the Wellcome Trust CD-ROM series "Topics in International Health". From 1996 to 2004 he developed and managed the INASP-Health programme and the eForum HIF-net (Health Information Forum). He has worked as a medical officer in rural Ecuador and Peru, and in 2005 he worked alongside rural healthcare providers in South India to assess local priorities in access and use of health information.