Highlighted Resource for March 15: State of NC’s Mental Health and Substance Use Services Workforce
North Carolina has a critical shortage of mental health support, and this is only predicted to get more severe over time.
A recent report from Sheps Center Program on Health Workforce examines the current landscape of mental health providers, discussing the different healthcare roles, barriers to care, and patterns of treatment.
To learn more, check out the ADL’s March 15 Highlighted Resource: State of North Carolina’s Mental Health and Substance Use Services Workforce: Need, Supply, and Distribution Landscape Assessment
Highlighted Resource for March 1, 2026: Mapping maternity care deserts: Driving distance and health outcomes in North Carolina
Maternal care is critical for healthy birth outcomes, but access to it has been decreasing.
This article from the Journal of Rural Health discusses how the increasing distances needed to get to maternal care have impacted maternal and infant health.
To learn more, check out the ADL’s March 1 Highlighted Resource: Mapping maternity care deserts: Driving distance and health outcomes in North Carolina
Highlighted Resource for February 15, 2026: Vaccines Are Helping Older People More Than We Knew
Vaccinations can have benefits for older adults that go beyond the protection against diseases.
A recent New York Times article discusses research studies that connect vaccines to lower risks of dementia, as well as other conditions.
To learn more, check out the ADL’s February 15 Highlighted Resource: Vaccines Are Helping Older People More Than We Knew
Check out the meta-analysis on the shingles vaccine and dementia: Association between vaccinations and risk of dementia: a systematic review and meta-analysis
Relaunch of the AHEC Digital Library
The NC AHEC Digital Library (ADL) has been a critical component in the training, retention, and continuing education of North Carolina’s health workforce since its inception in 1999. On June 23, 2025, a new and improved ADL will be launched. Notably, the ADL will introduce a simplified and more efficient search function, called a discovery service, which will work more intuitively, similar to the functionality of the Google search engine.
The current ADL features a vast array of resources, including thousands of individual databases, journals, books, and research guides; currently users must search these resources individually, leading to multiple searches before the user can access the needed information. The new ADL’s discovery service will allow users to search in all these resources at once. This makes searching easier, faster and more efficient; it also increases user satisfaction, as the user can be sure that all the relevant information will be presented in the search results.
In addition, the new ADL will feature a Publication Finder to browse journals and databases individually. Users will also be able to create a personal profile to save their searches and bookmarks in one central place, which adds to efficiency and ease of use. The ADL will be upgraded in other ways as well: It will feature an entirely new interface, with an attractive, contemporary design and intuitive user experience. In addition to all the visually and experientially-apparent upgrades, the new ADL will feature new back-end architecture, for improved speed, security, and reliability.
Signing into the ADL will change as well. While some North Carolina institutions will allow for single-sign-on (SSO) access, most users will access the ADL through the MyAHEC portal. For that reason, users who do not currently have a MyAHEC account should plan on creating onebefore the week of June 22, 2025.
“The newly relaunched NC AHEC Digital Library will be a major improvement in the way our users interact with the thousands of resources we have in our collection,” said Sarah Kimmel, MLIS, the Director of Library Services for NC AHEC. “The new ADL will make it easier to search everything in our universe, and to keep all their searches together in the user’s profile, making the ADL an entirely new experience and learning tool.”