Understanding the Information Creation Practices of LGBTQIA+ Community Health Workers

This paper reports on preliminary findings from an action research project partnering health sciences librarians with community health workers (CHWs) who are LGBTQIA+ to create information resources for the CHW’s community. Findings report on twelve virtual semistructured interviews with CHWs from South Carolina and eleven virtual brainstorming meetings between CHWs and health sciences librarians. The authors analyzed verbatim interview and meeting transcripts using a combination of deductive and inductive qualitative coding. Findings demonstrate 1) external barriers constrain and motivate information creation; 2) the presence of preexisting information, knowledge, and resources within the CHWs’ communities; 3) that CHW-librarian pairs brainstormed how to codify and iterate what already exists; 4) that librarians adopted a reference role when brainstorming and suggested resource ideas within and outside of the CHWs’ communities. Implications include strategies that researchers and practitioners can adopt to leverage existing experiential and embodied knowledge within LGBTQIA+ communities.