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This paper aims to assess a pediatric media health effects’ toolkit from a health literacy perspective. A secondary aim is to highlight the collaborative role of an embedded librarian.

The authors assessed ten items from the toolkit in several formats (text, survey and video) using the following health literacy assessment tools: the Simple Measure of Gobbledygook, the Suitability Assessment of Materials, the Patient Education Materials Assessment Tool for Printed Materials and the Patient Education Materials Assessment Tool for Audio/Visual Materials.

Both the toolkit’s readability scores and understandability scores provided a deeper understanding of where improvements to the toolkit need to be made. The review process also highlighted issues with the assessment tools themselves that prevent them from providing a complete analysis of each materials’ readability and suitability.

This initial assessment of the toolkit will serve as the backbone for additional formative research, revisions and pilot tests, which will be conducted for the toolkit to become a viable, available and usable tool for pediatricians and health-care providers. The insight gleaned from this study serves as an example, for other institutions across fields, of the importance of having professionals, such as librarians, become well-versed in health literacy and offer guidance and insight for the development of health-focused patient materials.

This project provides further insight into the evolving role of the embedded librarian. As gatekeepers of information with the responsibility of vetting sources, informing the creation of content, and developing resources, the integration of health literacy knowledge is imperative for librarians to further the work of their institutions and aid in the progression of their field.

Despite a wealth of data about the high proportion of disabled families and individuals who live below the poverty line, previous research still knows relatively little about the ways financial struggle shapes disability care in families. Furthermore, research on disability care in families often focuses either on children or on parents with disabilities, without considering how both versions of family care fit together. Relying on 31 in-depth retrospective interviews with white financially struggling mothers and young adult daughters, we describe how both mothers and daughters perform care work around disability (with perspectives from families with both parent and child disability). Relying on a feminist disability studies understanding of disability, and a holistic view of family processes and care, we articulate the role of interdependence in disability care work in families who live at the intersection of disability and financial struggle.