COVID-19 Information Resources from NLM and Beyond

Posted by Tessa Zindren on October 12th, 2020 Posted in: The MAReport
Tags: 2020 Issue 3

---

As the primary contact for public health professionals and clinicians in the Middle Atlantic Region, I’d like to extend a thank you on behalf of MAR to public health workers, clinicians, and all those who are working to keep us safe during the coronavirus pandemic.

Several resources from NLM and NIH support the location of trustworthy information about COVID-19. Get the latest public health information from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the latest research information from the National Institutes of Health. In addition, MedlinePlus, the National Library of Medicine’s main resource for consumer health information, contains updated MedlinePlus health topics on COVID-19 in English and Spanish.

Helpful COVID-19 resources for professionals include:

• PubMed– a database that contains more than 30 million citations and abstracts of biomedical literature. In early 2020, NLM Technical Bulletins, New MeSH Supplementary Concept Record for Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19)​ and More New MeSH Supplementary Concept Records for COVID-19, highlighted MeSH updates in response to the COVID-19 pandemic to enhance PubMed search and retrieval. More PubMed COVID-19 links are available on the NLM homepage.
• LitCovid – a curated literature hub for tracking up-to-date scientific information about the 2019 novel Coronavirus. NIH’s LitCovid database provides access to thousands of curated Coronavirus articles. Learn more from this LitCovid video.
• Disaster Information Management Research Center (DIMRC) – a resource that provides access to health information resources and technology for disaster and public health emergency preparedness, response, and recovery. There are 736 records on COVID-19 in DIMRC’s Disaster Lit database.
• PHPartners – a resource to help the public health workforce find and use information effectively to improve and protect the public’s health. In the Health Data, Tools & Statistics section, you can find links to COVID-19 statistical data.

If you’d like to learn more about NLM’s COVID-19 activities and response, one great resource is the NLM Director’s Blog. Recent articles include:

• NIH One Step Closer to Speeding Delivery of COVID-19 Testing to Those Who Need it the Most Through RADx-UP
• Emergency Funding Allows NLM to Expand COVID-19 Research and Services
• Answering the Call: Academic Health Sciences Libraries and COVID-19
• How Does a Library Respond to a Global Crisis?

Are you interested in promoting correct information about COVD-19 on social media? If so, the COVID-19 social media resources webpage contains suggested posts on a range of topics, from the latest NIH research on COVID-19, to tips on social distancing, staying active, and more.

Other various open innovation initiatives and open science tools include:

• Accelerating COVID-19 Therapeutic Interventions and Vaccines (ACTIV) – a public-private partnership between NIH, other HHS sibling agencies, other government agencies and academic, philanthropic and biopharmaceutical organizations to speed development of treatments and vaccines for COVID-19
• Pandemic Response Hackathon: Hack COVID-19 (hackathon page) – co-sponsored by the HHS Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT
• For the most comprehensive list of open innovation approaches underway around the world, check out Luminary Labs’ COVID-19 open innovation index.
• COVID-19 Open Research Dataset (CORD-19) Challenge – with data support from NIH/NLM. NLM has announced that they are expanding access to coronavirus literature via PubMed Central
• COVID19innovations.org – organized by the US Agency for International Development
• COVID-19 High Performance Computing (HPC) Consortium – with support from DOE National Labs, NSF, and NASA
• MIT COVID-19 Challenge – with support from the Department of Veterans Affair

---

Written by Erin Seger, Health Professions Coordinator, for the Fall 2020 edition of The MAReport quarterly newsletter.