the Stony Brook Medicine Healthy Libraries Program (HeLP) – featured recently on WCBS-TV – is a partnership between Suffolk County Public Libraries and a unique group of faculty supervisors and student-in-training representing the fields of social work, public health, nursing nurses, nutrition and librarians working together to provide access to both in-person and virtual healthcare-related resources for patrons and librarians of public libraries throughout Suffolk County. The program aims to improve the health and well-being of Suffolk residents through library programs, medical screenings and referrals to local health and social services, education and the dissemination of information about current health issues impacting our communities.

The SBMHeLP started in fall 2019 as an in-person program, but had to move remotely during the COVID pandemic, offering virtual meetings, one-on-one appointments and webinars on a wide range of topics related to the health. In-person programming is expected to return in fall 2021 and will expand to include the Physician Assistant (PA) program.

Program objectives

• Provide evidence-based health information, screening and case management to a diverse community of clients as part of the public library
• Refer clients to promote access to locally appropriate health and social service programs that will meet their health and social support needs
• For students to experience an interprofessional team and demonstrate the core competencies based on the Interprofessional Education Collaborative (IPEC)
• Support programs and training, and provide resources to librarians and their clients

Lisa Benz Scott, PhD, Ddirector of the Ppublic health program at Stony Brook University, is the founding director of HeLP and leads an inter-profession faculty team health science teachers who work together to recruit, train and oversee about 25 students a semester involved in the program.

The program, which hit more than 900 customer contacts during pandemic, will grow from five libraries to eight in Suffolk County from September 2021. The current library locations are Huntington (main and station), Patchogue-Medford, Longwood and Brentwood.

SBMHeLP is supported in part by the American Heart Association of Long Island.

For more information visit the site, E-mail [email protected] or call 631-216-8220.