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Community Health Engagement: Health Books for Public Libraries

About the Health Books Spreadsheet

Several library associations and health organizations no longer maintain lists of recommended print materials of consumer health information, which have helped public libraries make collection development-related decisions. The Community Health Outreach Team has been working on creating this list of health books since late Spring 2018 and will continue to refine this list. The spreadsheet below contains reference books, children's books, and graphic novels published in 2014 to 2018. We identified these books by looking at metadata available on WorldCat, Amazon, and the Free Library of Philadelphia websites as well as Consumer Connections, the official newsletters of the Medical Library Association (MLA) Consumer And Patient Health Information Section (CAPHIS).

We acknowledge that this list could be longer and would like to make this list a collective effort and welcome feedback from public library staff, health professionals, and people who like to learn about health. Please submit book suggestions using the form on the right.

Looking for health books for kids and teens?

The Penn Libraries Community Engagement Department collaboratively developed lists of health-related books for children and teens with nurses, reading specialists, ESL teachers, and counselors from 6 elementary and 2 high schools in the Philadelphia School District. The lists below highlight books from this collection that are available at the Free Library of Philadelphia.

Book Lists by Topic

Featured Books

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