New health literacy stations now available for residents throughout Clayton County Library System
Residents in Clayton County now have free access to health literacy stations in the county’s six public libraries.
The sites were created to provide communities of color with basic medical resources. Each station has resources, like a blood pressure machine and glucose meter, and exclusive access to medical websites.
The stations were part of a twenty-thousand-dollar Healthy Men, Health Families grant through the Network of the National Library of Medicine. Funding also went toward free public health classes with medical professionals earlier this year.
Scott Parham is the Director of the Clayton County Library System. Parham showed off the health station at the main library in Jonesboro, and he says—speaking from his own experience—this type of access is essential, especially for Black men.
“They don’t seek out their doctor, or they don’t seek out medical care for themselves as they should,” Parham said. “And we wanted to promote resources or avenues with which they could come to the library and do some things on their own.”
Summer Waters works as Library Assistant in the main library. The new health stations, she says, encourage self-awareness and meet smaller needs for a wide variety of Clayton residents.
“We are the first place a lot of people go when they are in dire need of resources, so being able to have little resources like this—even something small, like [information about] blood pressure and weight, or [having] our little health books out,” Waters said. “Small things like that can go a long way for a lot of people.”
Library officials say they are currently assessing the use of the literacy stations before moving forward with any possible upgrades, but Parham hopes sites become available in throughout more city buildings.
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