The Robert Woods Johnson Foundation has awarded a grant to the NIH's National Library of Medicine (NLM) to administer training programs at four universities in sharing information to advance public health. From Wednesday's press release: 'Without strong systems for gathering, using, and sharing information, federal, state and local public health offices cannot adequately detect disease outbreaks, notify the public of emerging health problems or promote sound health practices. Recognizing the importance of this issue, the National Library of Medicine (NLM) will administer a $3.68 million grant from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF) to develop tomorrow's public health leaders in the science of public health informatics...."The health of our communities is threatened if we cannot effectively analyze and share critical information among public health agencies, hospitals and community health providers," said Risa Lavizzo-Mourey, M.D., M.B.A., president and chief executive officer of the RWJF. "This collaboration will help prepare new leaders to be the architects of sophisticated information systems that can help public health officials respond to emergencies and save lives."...The grant will support program development at the selected training sites as well as stipends, tuition and other trainee expenses. "In this day and age, no public health agency can work in isolation," said Donald A.B. Lindberg, M.D., director of the National Library of Medicine. "Through this program we will help put information sharing at the center of efforts to connect all public health agencies."'
(PS: The press release does not mention OA. But if OA is not part of a serious program in information sharing, then something is wrong.)
Posted by
Peter Suber at 6/10/2005 02:19:00 PM.
The open access movement:
Putting peer-reviewed scientific and scholarly literature
on the internet. Making it available free of charge and
free of most copyright and licensing restrictions.
Removing the barriers to serious research.
I recommend the OA tracking project (OATP) as the best way to stay on top of new OA developments. You can read the OATP feed on a blog-like web page or subscribe to it by RSS, email, or Twitter. You can also help build the feed by tagging new developments you encounter.
