Purdue Libraries and School of Information Studies News

Reducing health information poverty for rural pregnant women seed grant award

April 9th, 2025

By Rachel Fundator, clinical assistant professor and information literacy instructional designer, and Dr. Clarence Maybee, associate dean for learning and W. Wayne Booker Chair in Information Literacy

The Institute for Information Literacy at Purdue is thrilled to have recently awarded a seed grant for work being done at Emory University investigating ways to alleviate health information poverty and foster health literacy among rural pregnant women in Iran. 

Previous studies have found that women living in remote areas in Iran receive low levels of adequate healthcare. This qualitative study will help identify avenues for strengthening and increasing health information awareness for rural pregnant women susceptible to health information poverty due to a lack of access to health centers or public libraries. The researchers, Dr. Neda Zeraatkar, Middle East and Islamic studies librarian at Emory University, and Dr. Leili Seifi, associate professor of information science at the University of Birjand,  will develop training materials for stakeholders who work in maternal and child health in rural areas across the country. 

The Institute looks forward to learning about the team’s toolkit for fostering the health literacy of pregnant rural women in Iran.

Institute Awardees for “Access and Strengthen Health Information Literacy: A Toolkit to Alleviate Information Poverty in Pregnant Rural Women in Iran”

• Leili Seifi, associate professor, Department of Knowledge and Information Science, University of Birjand, Iran.

Neda Zeraatkar, middle east and islamic studies librarian, Emory University