Mission

• to empower high school students and assist them in serving their communities;
• to improve the awareness and use of quality health information in communities; and
• to create student-centered programs for community health outreach.

We offer support for those starting new peer tutoring programs that seek to partner teachers and high school students and wish to learn from the experiences of others.

An overview of our project

History

Four juniors from Med High were selected initially to serve as peer tutors to teach MedlinePlus and PubMed and to help reach the project goals. These goals included increasing the utilization of MedlinePlus and other health information resources by high school faculty, librarians, students and their families and obtaining feedback about factors that are important to users of these information resources. The project has continued to grow with more peer tutors being included each year, including peer tutors from Science Academy and Med Tech. Services provided also expand each year, educating high school students about a valuable information resource, showing that working with high school students is an effective way to reach families and community members. Many had shown MedlinePlus to family members for assistance with personal or family health concerns. It also is available for Spanish language health information, which is needed by many community members. MedlinePlus also has demonstrated that it is a valuable resource for high school students; participants found MedlinePlus to be very helpful in preparing school research projects, school clinical experiences, and with Health Occupations Student Association projects.