Libraries are becoming hubs for public health across the U.S.

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The mobile clinic is one of several health programs offered by libraries across the U.S.—from tiny rural town libraries to large urban systems. They offer fitness classes, food pantries, cooking classes, conversations about loneliness and mental health, and even blood pressure monitors that can be checked out just like books. The public health programs leverage libraries’ reputation as sources of reliable information and their ability to reach people beyond formal healthcare settings. No money, insurance, language skills, or ID required, no limits on age. All are welcome. Libraries are “the last true public institution,” said Jaime Placht, a health and well-being specialist at the Kansas City Public Library system in Kansas City, Missouri, which has a full-time social work team. “The library is a public health space.” The Kansas City Public Library, along with Milwaukee and several others, is part of the American Heart Association’s Libraries with Heart program. Several Kansas City branches have blood pressure stations—which Placht said have been used 13,000 times—as well as take-home blood pressure kits that have been checked out nearly 100 times. The program started there about a year ago. “We have patrons that say, ‘Because I used the blood pressure monitor at the library, I went and saw my physician for the first time in a long time,’” Placht said. There is no local public health office in Jarrell, Texas, a small town between Austin and Waco. But there is a nonprofit library that can connect patrons to mental health help. It’s one of nine rural libraries in central Texas that receives funding from the St. David’s Foundation, the philanthropic arm of one of the state’s largest health systems. The public library in Smithville, Texas, which also gets money from the Libraries for Health program, stocks boxes of surplus food from area farmers and builds programs that help teens, older adults, and parents address isolation. The library’s peer support specialist has gone from working with four to five people a month to nearly 60 in the community southeast of Austin. This article was provided by The Associated Press.