Internet Reviews

Joni R. Roberts and Carol Drost

Joni R. Roberts is associate university librarian for public services and collection development at Willamette University, email: jroberts@willamette.edu, and Carol A. Drost is associate university librarian for technical services at Willamette University, email: cdrost@willamette.edu

Rural Health Information Hub. Access: https://www.ruralhealthinfo.org/.

Rural Health Information Hub (RHIhub) is a nexus for information on health and healthcare in rural communities. Funded through the Federal Office of Rural Health Policy, an office of the Health Resources and Services Administration, RHIhub provides information about rural populations in the United States with the goal of improving health.

The website is organized into five browsable sections: “Online Library,” “Topics & States,” “Rural Data Visualizations,” “Case Studies & Conversations,” and “Tools for Success.” “Online Library” is updated daily and provides information about funding opportunities, news, and lists of relevant organizations, publications, and events. “Topics & States” compiles information from federal agencies and nonprofits into a topic or location-based guides. The “Topic Guides” provide contextual information for a healthcare service or need, such as “Rural Health Disparities” and “Hunger and Access to Healthy Food.” The “State Guides” provide information about each state’s demographics, health insurance coverage, number of healthcare facilities, and more. “Rural Data Visualizations” uses federal data to map and chart demographics, health disparities, and trends in the healthcare workforce. “Case Studies & Conversations” provides opportunities for the rural healthcare workforce to connect and share best practices through webinars, videos, Twitter chats, and more. “Tools for Success” includes resources for planning, funding, and improving health programs. For example, in this section one can find “Evidence-Based Toolkits for Rural Community Health.” These toolkits outline the steps for researching, implementing, evaluating, and funding programs, and covers areas such as early childhood health, medication for opioid use disorder, telehealth, and more.

Content from across the website’s five sections can also be retrieved through a basic search from the site’s homepage. Search results can be sorted by date or relevance, and filtered by source type (funding, topic guides, toolkits, etc.) from the search results page.

RHIhub provides context, models, and resources for improving health in rural communities. Site content is current, and sources are readily cited. The clear organization of resources ensures the site is more content-rich than content-heavy. Additionally, the website’s users are invited to contact RHIhub staff for assistance with customized information needs. RHIhub is an excellent resource for students and practitioners in the areas of health sciences, public health, social work, and public policy.—Emily Hamstra, Network of the National Library of Medicine (NNLM), Region 5, ehamstra@uw.edu

Voteathome.org. Access: http://www.voteathome.org.

President Donald Trump railed against voting-by-mail during the run-up to the 2020 general election. He threatened to withhold funding from Nevada and Michigan when those states moved forward with plans to increase absentee voter participation in the election. Trump, and many of his Republican acolytes, contended without evidence that absentee voting by mail led to voter fraud. With the upcoming midterm elections only months away, information professionals will no doubt be asked for material on this topic through the general election in 2024.

Hence the relevance of information resources such as Voteathome.org, sponsored by the National Vote at Home Institute (NVAHI), whose mission is to increase the use of, and confidence in, the vote-at-home (VAH) elections systems. The landing page includes buttons for “Benefits of VAH” and “VAH Myths.” Among the benefits listed are increased voter participation, equity in voter participation, and increased election security. For example, in this section under a sublink entitled “Cost Savings,” NVAHI cites a Center for American Progress estimate that voting lines during the 2012 election cost Americans $544 million in lost productivity and wages. The material contained under the button “VAH Myths” is confusing because the myths are not actually identified. Instead, facts about voting by mail are presented such as, voting fraud is exceptionally rare, mail ballots are sent only to registered voters, and individuals can only vote once in an election, either by mail or in person.

Also on the landing page is a state-by-state interactive dashboard where patrons can see the options for voting from home. Here, researchers can see the verification requirements for voting from home and whether an excuse is required for requesting an absentee ballot. Users can also find out if a state provides drop boxes for ballots, tracks individual ballots, or provides a cure process for correcting such errors as missing or mismatched voter signatures.

Under “About Us,” NVAHI offers a series of brief reports (PDFs of five-to-ten pages), such as “What Happened in American Elections 2020,” “2020 Retrospective: Vote-at-home Policy Actions,” and “2019 Annual Report.” Lower division undergraduate students preparing short assignments for communications and political science courses will find useful material throughout the site.—Wendell G. Johnson, Northern Illinois University, wjohnso1@niu.edu

WomensLaw.org. Access: https://www.womenslaw.org/.

WomensLaw.org provides “plain-language legal information for victims of abuse” focusing on state-level laws related to restraining orders, custody, child support, divorce, guns, and more. The website first launched in 2000 and ten years later became a project of the National Network to End Domestic Violence, a nonprofit organization “dedicated to creating a social, political, and economic environment in which violence against women no longer exists.” The intended audience for the site is those living with or escaping domestic violence or sexual violence. While “women” is in the site name, a large banner at the top of the homepage reads “WomensLaw serves and supports all survivors, no matter their sex or gender.”

Both a map and dropdown menu are available for users to navigate to legal information and resources for the state of their choosing. To help with readability, the information is presented in a question-and-answer format. A strength of the site is the focus on ensuring information is current. Pages include a “Laws current as of [date]” label, input is solicited through a link to the hotline that reads “Have a suggestion or correction? Contact us!” and each month a summary of changes made to the site is published on the “What’s New on WomensLaw.org” page. For example, changes summarized in the “What’s New” section include adding statutes and updating links to download forms from courts’ websites. The site is also available in Spanish.

In an academic context, students of sociology, legal studies, and political science may find the WomensLaw.org site useful. The structure of the site–information broken down by state with each state page using the same Q & A template for topics covered–supports students wanting to compare multiple states. The emphasis on making the content easily understandable is also valuable for students who may not have experience reading legal language. The summaries cite the laws they refer to, so looking at the two side-by-side could be a good exercise for students to practice reading legal texts. For political science students, following the updates posted on “What’s New on WomensLaw.org” could also provide insight into the legislative process by which laws are changed.—Lucy Rosenbloom, Loyola University-New Orleans, lrosen@loyno.edu