Senior Community Health major
October marks a myriad of occasions:
changing leaves, cooler weather, costumes, candy, and cavities. But one thing
that may not immediately come to mind is health literacy. Besides being the
month of ghouls and ghosts, October is health literacy month. I paid a visit to
the Herschel S. Horowitz Center
for Health Literacy (CHL), here in the School of Public Health, to find out
about what they are up to.
 |
| Community Health Intern Nasreen Jones and Center Coordinator Katherine Garcia |
Their mission goes beyond educating
health care professionals about the importance of clear and effective
communication with different populations. It’s about both demonstrating and
celebrating health literacy through effective health communication and sharing
tools that enable people to make better choices that lower risk and better
health.
For example, they prepared some practical tips for parents on how to lower the risk of tooth decay in kids who will inevitably indulge in Halloween candy this month. The University of Maryland’s newdesk site published the article Halloween 2012: Keep Your Kid's Teeth Healthy from the University of Maryland along with the Washington FamilyMagazine.
The Center for Health Literacy has several contributing faculty members who are leaders in oral health literacy, and the center is named for Dr. Herschel S. Horowitz, who was a dentist, educator, and public health advocate.
Another example is a project that the Center for Health Literacy assisted in developing with the Primary Care Coalition of Montgomery County. They convened a focus group of Latina women with diabetes to evaluate the use of an empowerment model for dialogue and management of diabetes. The Center is continuing to be involved by evaluating the text-based support communication system for the participants. The video below provides details about the pilot project, "Mi Círculo de Salud" or "My Wellness Circle."
Mi Círculo de Salud from Andrea Wise on Vimeo.
The “CHL Clip of the Week” is another way that the center staff explore how
to improve health literacy through multimedia communication. CHL staff watch a
handful of health-related YouTube videos posted by everyday people and then
vote on which one is the best.
Check out the soon to be launched Health Literacy
Video Archive Project, a new initiative where health literacy pioneers and
unsung-heroes are interviewed and their voices documented. This project looks
to capture the lives and the work of 17 different health literacy leaders, to
take their vision and give it form and context.
The first leader interview is expected to be released by end of the
month. Why is this project important? This knowledge, this expertise, and these
leaders are not eternal. Leonard Doak, the man who, along his wife Cecelia,
wrote Teaching Patients with Low Literacy
Skills, the first textbook in health literacy, passed away recently.
Linda Aldoory, Director and
Chair of the Center, and Katherine Garcia, Center Coordinator, are working to
address health literacy and its related issues.
Their passion and dedication to improving and adding to the field of
health literacy is clear through their work in building the state-wide
coalition Health Literacy Maryland and in leading a wide variety of research
and education efforts that are beginning to inform healthy public policy in the state.
What’s next from them? They’re
holding their first Twitter chat on "Health
Communication: A gateway to Health Equity?" at 2 PM on October 31. Find
them on Twitter @healthliteracy1 and use #healthlit to be involved in the chat.
Email kgarcia@umd.edu for more information.
Also, stay tuned -- whisper of
a documentary lingers in the CHL air.
No comments:
Post a Comment