The health information needs of people living in rural areas are unmet. We aim to report on the results of the IRIS institutional- and population-level intervention designed to improve access to health information in rural settings. The intervention consisted of three components: equip local libraries with health-related books, train librarians to refer them to locals, and enhance locals’ health information seeking behavior, self-efficacy, and health literacy. Data was collected using a mixed-methods strategy of inquiry in 2010 and 2011 from 822 adult inhabitants from four rural communities in Cluj county, Romania, using a nonrandomized control-group pretest-posttest study design. We used the Kruskal-Walis one-way analysis of variance to determine statistically significant differences between the two study groups. Results show that individuals from rural communities included in the intervention group were more engaged in health information seeking, had higher self-efficacy in reading and understanding health-related materials, and reported higher frequencies of asking about and borrowing books on health themes from the village library as compared to respondents in the control group. As the IRIS initiative made use of available community resources and proposed only several incremental changes within the librarian system, this intervention has a major potential of sustainability and replicability.

中文翻译：

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“基于社区的干预措施，以增加在农村地区获得健康信息的机会”

农村地区人民的健康信息需求尚未得到满足。我们旨在报告旨在改善农村地区卫生信息获取的IRIS机构和人口一级干预措施的结果。干预措施包括三个部分：为当地图书馆配备与健康相关的书籍，培训馆员将其推荐给当地人，以及增强当地人的健康信息以寻求行为，自我效能感和健康素养。使用非随机对照组前测后测研究设计，在2010年和2011年采用混合方法调查的数据来自罗马尼亚克卢日县四个农村社区的822名成年居民。我们使用Kruskal-Walis单向方差分析来确定两个研究组之间的统计学显着差异。结果表明，干预组中来自农村社区的人们更加参与健康信息的搜索，在阅读和理解与健康相关的材料方面具有较高的自我效能，并且报告从村庄询问和借阅有关健康主题的书的频率更高与对照组的受访者相比。由于IRIS计划利用了可用的社区资源，并且仅提议了图书馆员系统内的一些增量更改，因此这种干预措施具有可持续性和可复制性的巨大潜力。并报告说，与对照组的受访者相比，从乡村图书馆询问和借阅有关健康主题的书籍的频率更高。由于IRIS计划利用了可用的社区资源，并且仅提议了图书馆员系统内的一些增量更改，因此这种干预措施具有可持续性和可复制性的巨大潜力。并报告说，与对照组的受访者相比，从乡村图书馆询问和借阅有关健康主题的书籍的频率更高。由于IRIS计划利用了可用的社区资源，并且仅提议了图书馆员系统内的一些增量更改，因此这种干预措施具有可持续性和可复制性的巨大潜力。