User:Mcbrarian

Denise Smith (Mcbrarian) in April 2020

Introduction

My name is Denise Smith. I am an academic health sciences librarian at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada and I research Wikipedia and consumer health information behaviour. I am instructor in McMaster's Bachelor of Health Sciences (BHSc) program and in Western University's Library and Information Science (MLIS) program.

Current work

• Wikipedia and consumer health: A research project that explores how Wikipedia users engage with its health and medical content. This project received a rapid grant from WMF in June 2021 to fund participant stipends and the purchase of qualitative analysis software.

Past work

• I teach a course in the Bachelor of Health Sciences program at McMaster University that requires students to edit Wikipedia. Dashboards for each iteration of the course are below:
  • HTHSCI 3E03 (Winter 2019)
  • HTHSCI 3E03 (Fall 2019)
  • HTHSCI 3E03 (Fall 2020)
  • HTHSCI 3E03 (Fall 2021)
• Collaboration with McMaster University's Institute for Pain Research & Care:
  • Opioid
  • Pain Management
  • Chronic Pain
• Binge eating disorder
• Purging disorder
• Indigenous health project with Jwabba (BHSc, 2021)
  • First nations nutrition experiments
• Women's health project with Sahrishmasood (BHSc, 2022)
  • Vulvectomy
  • Vestibulectomy
  • Vulvar cancer
  • Vulvodynia
  • Vulvar vestibulitis
• In Summer 2021 I began updating articles on Wikipedia about Canadian cities by adding an indigenous land acknowledgment or improving the indigenous history content already present. This work is presently on hold.
• Supervision of two undergraduate honours students in the Bachelor of Health Sciences who requested to edit Wikipedia
  • BHSc Thesis Projects 2021/22

Research interests and academics

• I research Wikipedia as a health information resource and health information behaviour
• I am (slowly) working towards becoming a more active editor on Wikipedia and Wikidata making any contributions of value that fall within my skill set or expertise
• Feel free to ask me about my research interests or for comment on qualitiative research methods, systematic reviews, health librarianship and information/digital literacy

Publications related to Wikipedia's health content

• Situating Wikipedia as a health information resource in various contexts: a scoping review
• Does the packaging of health information affect the assessment of its reliability? A randomized controlled trial protocol
• Wikipedia and consumer health
• Wikipedia: An unexplored resource for understanding consumer health information behaviour in library and information science scholarship
• Public knowledge during the COVID-19 infodemic: Health literacy and the effect of Wikipedia. Forthcoming chapter in “Open Knowledge and Wikimedia Projects in Canada”

This user is a participant in WikiProject Medicine. This user is participating in the WP Canada 10,000 Challenge