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.

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.

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:
Collaboration with McMaster University's Institute for Pain Research & Care:
Binge eating disorder
Purging disorder
Indigenous health project with Jwabba (BHSc, 2021)
- First nations nutrition experiments
Women's health project with Sahrishmasood (BHSc, 2022)
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

This user is participating in the
WP Canada 10,000 Challenge