Health Literacy: A Vital Pathway to Healthcare Transformation

When: March 28, 2013, 1 pm – 4 pm

Where: George and Dolores Eccles Institute of Human Genetics Auditorium, 15 North 2030 East, 1st Floor

Keynote Speaker, Andrew Pleasant, PhD. “Health Literacy: Applications for Enhanced Health System Performance OR . . . How to Change the World with Health Literacy”

Friday morning Workshop: March 29, 2013.

Find more at  Priscilla M. Mayden  Lecture

• The communication gap between physician and patient
• Encouraging full participation by patients
• The complexity of the healthcare system itself.

Talking to my doctor

In an article in the New York Times’ “Health” section, Pauline Chen, M.D., describes talking to a friend informally about her friend’s health condition and the latest research in the area. But when Chen suggested her friend discuss options with her primary care provider, her friend went quiet.

When she finally spoke again, her once-confident voice sounded nearly childlike. “I don’t really feel comfortable bringing it up,” she said. While her doctor was generally warm and caring, “he seems too busy and uninterested in what I feel or want to say.”

“I don’t want him to think I’m questioning his judgment,” she added. “I don’t want to upset him or make him angry at me!”

For many, including this writer, doctors are so highly regarded that it borders on intimidation. Couple that with a reimbursement system that necessitates seeing as many patients as possible in order to be successful, and you have a recipe for the physician-patient relationship demonstrated above. Recent efforts to make the healthcare decision making process a joint effort has improved medical visits, but it has failed to take into account the patient’s perspective. A recent study using patient focus groups sheds light on why some patients are reluctant to speak up for themselves:

• Even well-educated and well-to-do patients feel pressure to conform to social expectations, trapped into responding in certain ways to doctors
• Some physicians can be authoritarian
• Patients fear being labeled as a “difficult” patient

While most of the participants in this study were over 50 and lived in relatively affluent areas, it stands to reason that others from different socio-economic backgrounds would feel the same way.

Chen effectively sums up what’s needed:

Care organizations and doctors’ practices must be restructured to allow more in-depth conversations; clinicians need to be reimbursed for the time required for more meaningful conversations; and health care systems must adopt rigorous quality standards that measure and value real patient engagement in decisions.

Supporting healthy lifestyles

As we work to transform our healthcare system to improve patient-doctor communication, it must also undergo radical change to support wellness, rather than profiting by the quantity of sick people treated. As noted recently in The Atlantic, more research is needed on how to successfully motivate people to live healthier lives.

This is not as easy as it seems, for it requires walking a fine line between encouraging behavioral change and individual freedom. “For example, a program could let diabetic patients earn points toward more affordable insurance coverage by completing a self-taught module on diabetes” (from article in The Atlantic). There are even mobile tools to help manage diabetes, as previously noted in this column. Such methods for improving health literacy show promise, yet need confirmation by research with large samples over long periods of time.

Yet some people will not change their behavior no matter what positive incentives are offered. For these patients, it would be all-too tempting to tie insurance rates to blood test results obtained while visiting one’s primary care physician. While no one is currently suggesting turning doctors into health police, if it could be made profitable, somewhere it would be tried.

In a sense, what is needed is a kind of health literacy for physicians and insurers. They need to know and understand what works and what does not in encouraging healthier lifestyles in patients: modes of education, treatment regimens and combinations, incentives and more. Redistribute profitability so a greater share of reward is earned for wellness, rather than sickness.

A better system

No matter your political persuasion, most seem to agree that the current system should be made better. Simplifying the process of obtaining, utilizing and keeping health insurance coverage. We pay far more for healthcare than other industrialized countries, and yet our system is ranked 37th in the world. Reforms to the health care system are a step in the right direction, and more are needed. T. R. Reed’s book, The Healing of America: A Global Quest for Better, Cheaper, and Fairer Health Care, shows five different systems in other countries that provide a better healthcare system than we currently offer. Many in this country pride themselves on their ability to “go it alone.” It’s time we started learning from others successes.

Move your mouse over a region (one or more provinces) and it turns a darker shade of grey. Click on the region, and it takes you to a map of that region. Using the map tools (zoom, move, etc.), you can zoom quite far in to a given area.

A tool like this could help show patterns in areas needing additional education and outreach. And if the U.S. had a map like this, one could add an optional overlay to note “red” and “blue” states, which might offer additional insights for which political leaders could be enlisted to assist with raising awareness and health literacy levels.

Does the U.S. have a map like this? How else could this information be used? Tell us (in the comments)!

Google, Yahoo!, Bing, and Ask.com are by and large effective search engines for helping lay users get health and medical information. Nevertheless, the current ranking methods have some pitfalls and there is room for improvement to help users get more accurate and useful information. We suggest that search engine users explore multiple search engines to search different types of health information and medical knowledge for their own needs and get a professional consultation if necessary.

Researchers searched for “breast cancer” using the four top search engines, combined the top 200 non-redundant results from each source into a list, and then gave that list to eight volunteers to evaluate, scoring there relevance to research on a scale of 0-10 (low to high). Volunteers were all highly educated, most of them with backgrounds in science. They were provided with six “gold standard” sites for information on this topic to compare against before making their determination:

1. U.S. National Cancer Institute
2. American Cancer Society
3. Mayo Clinic
4. MedicineNet
5. Wikipedia
6. Susan G. Komen for the Cure

The volunteers tended to score the popular science and personal websites the highest overall, while scoring corporation and advertising websites the lowest. Researchers conclude that search engines do provide good information overall, though their sample is small, both in number of participants and topics searched.

This study has a number of serious flaws in it, and begs the question: is a little bit of mediocre research better than no research at all? First, the high education levels of the volunteer evaluators, plus their choices to score popular science websites above commercial websites indicate high levels of information literacy. Yet other research shows that over 90 million adults in the U.S. (36% of the population) have poor health literacy. How would people like this evaluate and select the right sources using a search engine? As any librarian watching patrons search will tell you, most people never look beyond the first three search results, let alone the first page of results. And search engines like Google employ algorithms to customize search results based on your previous searches, which may or may not give you the best resources.

Next, the researchers note the shortcomings of search engines in “ranking the websites according to their usefulness,” and recommend that “users apply multiple search engines when looking for medical and health information online, instead of using only a single search engine.” As a librarian and past computer consultant, I’ve learned that many people cannot distinguish between “the Internet” and a web browser, let alone utilize and critically evaluate search engines and the search results they generate. Librarians and researchers are the professionals best suited to handle that task.

Finally, while the “gold standard” sites probably contain all the basic information on breast cancer from the view of their medical expert, how readable and understandable is their content across different groups and ability levels? Had the researchers chosen to include a librarian on their team, she or he could have provided important insight and evaluation of these sites in this area. And why was a site like MedicineNet included while MedlinePlus was excluded from the short list? MedlinePlus is advertisement-free, offers information in Spanish and other languages, and is written at a level that can be understood by a wider audience.

While search engines will, generally speaking, help end users find helpful health and medical information, the will inevitably lead some people to inaccurate or misleading information. And with so many people having low information and health literacy skills, it is imperative that they be directed to quality, evidence-based resources for answers to their questions. This study does nothing to assist in that endeavor.

References:

Kutner, M. (2007). Literacy in everyday life: Results from the 2003 National Assessment of Adult Literacy.

Wang, L., Wang, J., Wang, M., Li, Y., Liang, Y., & Xu, D. (2012). Using Internet Search Engines to Obtain Medical Information: A Comparative Study. Journal of medical Internet research, 14(3).

Health care professionals must become “medically bilingual,” that is, learn to speak both medical jargon and plain language. I like to ask myself, “How would I explain this to my mother?”

When a physician is explaining her/his findings and recommendations, if the patient does not understand, he/she may not even ask for clarification out of fear of appearing ignorant. While medical schools are working to train doctors to speak using everyday language, patients can take some simple steps to avoid making this mistake: ask three simple questions:

1. What is my main problem?
2. What do I need to do?
3. Why is it important for me to do this?

And if your physician answers in a way that is confusing or loaded with unintelligible jargon, stop her/him and ask for them to explain in simpler language.

The National Patient Safety Foundation (NPSF) created the Ask Me 3^TM patient education program “to promote communication between health care providers and patients in order to improve health outcomes.” When patients clearly understand health information and instructions, they make fewer mistakes and can better manage their own healthcare. The NPSF offers patient brochures and other reference materials, and created this video to assist in improving patient-doctor communication.

While it is important that patients ask questions, and doctors answer using understandable language, it is also important to acknowledge that the current health system does not reward physicians for taking time to speak with patients. Regulation needs to be enacted or changed so that physicians can be reimbursed by health insurance, Medicare, Medicaid and other plans for the time spent. It will likely save the system money in the long run as well.

What other steps can be taken to improve doctor-patient communication? Tell us about it!

From 2006 – 2008, families in a six-site nationwide study participated in a program to enhance parenting skills. Participating parents were monitored for “depression, health- and healthcare-related practices, and surrounding family conditions at baseline and 6-month intervals for up to 36 months.” Data from this study, available in a publicly-funded AHRQ/NIH database, was recently analyzed, and while participants began with reduced health literacy skills, “after 1 year of enhanced home visitation, vulnerable parents were better able to manage personal and family health and healthcare, especially if depressed.” While the sample size (2,572 parent/child dyads) was modest, the findings demonstrate one way we can improve parental health literacy levels even among depressed parents.

In addition to demonstrating the benefits of home visitation in improving health literacy, this study provides support for those that argue for making publicly-funded research data available to all. While no less important back then, health literacy was not the burning topic in 2006-2008 as it is today. Principal investigators had no idea that their work could or would be used in this way. If this data was locked behind a publisher’s pay-wall, this study might never have happened. Because it was publicly available, it could be re-used to test new ideas and ways to help people today.

Researchers must have open access to as many data sources as possible in order to find new ways to help those in need. Access must take precedence over ownership and control when the health outcomes of vulnerable populations (in this case, children) is at stake.

What data sources should be made accessible that are not available right now? Or, what publicly available data/studies/etc. would you like to see analyzed in new and creative ways? Tell us about it!

Reference:

1.    Smith SA, Moore EJ. Health Literacy and Depression in the Context of Home Visitation. Maternal and child health journal. Nov 26 2011.

Looking for resources to improve health literacy and communication at your medical practice? The Health Literacy section of the AMA’s website toolkits, patient safety tip cards, and other resources to assist providers. Also, the Agency for Healthcare and Research Quality (AHRQ) of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services has resources for addressing health literacy and cultural competency.

What tools have you found helpful in improving patient health literacy? Tell us about it!

Reference:

Pawlak, R. (2005). Economic considerations of health literacy. Nurs Econ, 23(4), 173-180, 147.

Villanueva-Whitman, E. (2012). Communication is key to better health care  Retrieved April 26, 2012, from http://www.DesMoinesRegister.com/article/20120410/LIFE/304100053

First, the Center for Health Literacy Promotion Blog has a great story about “Esther,” a woman in the 1830′s whom the author calls “ahead of her time.” Too sick a 21 to help on the family farm or marry, she became a servant in a convent. When she became too sick to work there, she was sent home, where she founded a school, taught others to be teachers (who then started other schools), and broke social norms of the time to teach boys and girls together. At age 40, she and her teachers were recognized by the Catholic Church, becoming the Order of the Sisters of Saint Anne. While it may seem far afield to mention religious education in this context, closing words from the post make it a bit more relevant:

Aunt Esther was born two hundred years ahead of her time. Today her vision of literacy as the foundation for health, an escape route from poverty and the key to the advancement of women and society is an idea whose time has come. She inspires my work at the intersection of health and literacy.

The second item worth noting is a wiki created by researchers at the University of Michigan that is a catalog of more than 100 medical devices and technologies that can be used in poorer areas of the world. Example include:

• Pedal-powered nebulizer for asthma treatments
• Using a hand-cranked salad spinner as a centrifuge for blood samples
• Small, wax-filled sleeping bags that could be used to keep premature babies warm

Finally, an article in the Wall Street Journal asks some challenging questions about mobile devices and the future of medicine. In short, with all of the add-ons that are being created for smartphones, how will this transform the practice of medicine? The author offers these examples:

You can get an add-on to a smartphone which does eye refraction and then texts [the prescription] to get your glasses made. If you’re an optometrist, you might be worried about that. Or you can get your skin lesion scanned and get a text back quickly that there’s nothing to worry about. If you’re a dermatologist, that’s a big part of your practice. You will be able to take a DNA sequence on a USB port and pop it into your smartphone and get data out of it. It just goes on and on.

For patients that live a distance from a specialist in one area of medicine or another, online appointments could be used to maintain communication and improve patient outcomes. And many yet-to-be-invented uses of technology will radically alter how medicine is practiced. Yet medicine, as a profession, is slow to change. Will technology change that, or will it leave traditional medicine behind?

What do you think of these different stories and what they have to offer? Tell us!

“there has also been criticism that this concept has been poorly defined, that it stretches the idea of “literacy” to an indefensible extent and more specifically, that it adds little to the existing concerns and intervention approaches of the better established discipline of health promotion.”

She goes on to select one definition of health literacy (Nutbeam, 2000) and using the concept of “critical health literacy” to determine its usefulness in improving the health of communities and individuals. This article concludes that the concept of critical health literacy connects ideas across multiple domains, yet retains “a key focus on the interaction between individuals and information about health” and how information can be used to improve health outcomes.

While much of the research around the topic of health literacy has be quantitative in measure, qualitative research is also needed to address the “socially situated nature of health literacy, involving interpersonal relationships, emotional involvement, and issues of power and resistance” (Chinn, 2011). Knowing how people utilize their personal networks to assemble an understanding of their health situation has the potential to increase the effectiveness of health literacy outreach efforts.

But we cannot stop there. It is also important to know what individuals and organizations benefit from poor health literacy, and what roadblocks and hurdles – legal, political, and more – are being put or kept in place to maintain the status quo.

What questions do you think researchers should be asking about critical health literacy? Where should academic institutions, libraries, non-profit organizations and others be focusing their resources to address this timely issue? Tell us about it!

References:

Chinn, D. (2011). Critical health literacy: a review and critical analysis. Soc Sci Med, 73(1), 60-67. doi: 10.1016/j.socscimed.2011.04.004

Nutbeam, D. (2000). Health literacy as a public health goal: a challenge for contemporary health education and communication strategies into the 21st century. [Article]. Health Promotion International, 15(3), 259.

Health literacy is the ability to get information, understand it, and use information to lower risk and better health.

In addition, this site posted a YouTube video from Harvard School of Public Health’s Dr. Rima Rudd, Senior Lecturer on Society, Human Development, and Health. In it, she talks about the “Perspective” article she wrote for the New England Journal of Medicine on improving Americans’ health literacy.

Unfortunately, NEJM’s link to one of the sources cited in her paper is not working properly, namely, the report “Literacy & Health Outcomes” from AHRQ (the link to the left works). If only librarians had been consulted in the building of the Internet and World Wide Web…

The results suggest that most caregivers seek health information from a variety of resources, including print, non-print media (such as television and radio), family & friends. Because health care professionals are the primary, most-trusted source of information, the authors encourage health care professionals to be mindful of these caregivers’ potential lack of HL skills, as it can be a source for poor communication between these groups.

While the data obtained in this study is helpful, and is based on previous research, the authors’ hard work is presented primarily in text and tables. Comparisons of their findings to previous research are done entirely in text, where perhaps a graph or other visual form would make it clearer and more understandable.

The best ways to teach are often both the simplest and the most creative. For example, the Kawasaki Disease Foundation of India (KDFI) has created the “KD Info Cube,” a puzzle cube with basic information about Kawasaki Disease, a rare, non-contagious childhood disease that causes inflammation of blood vessels throughout the body. Dr Saji Philip, pediatric cardiologist and secretary general of the foundation, hopes this will provide important health information on this potentially fatal disease.

Do you know of, or use, a non-tech teaching tool for promoting health literacy on a given topic? How successful has it proven to be? Tell us about it!

Recent federal policy initiatives, including the Affordable Care Act of 2010, the Department of Health and Human Services’ National Action Plan to Improve Health Literacy, and the Plain Writing Act of 2010, have brought health literacy to a tipping point—that is, poised to make the transition from the margins to the mainstream.

Much of our health system assumes that every patient we see has strong health literacy skills, and can be strong advocates for themselves. But, as a video in a previous post clearly demonstrated, many ordinary people find the process of understanding and acting correctly on instructions from their providers a difficult challenge. One study cited found that only 12% of U.S. adults have sufficient health literacy skills to understand and effectively utilize health information. This can lead to hospitalization when a patient does not follow prescription instructions correctly, or recognize when their condition is worsening. Healthcare providers and organizations can change their processes and procedures in ways that can make a clear difference:

• Improve providers’ communication skills.
• Simplify and make written materials easier to understand.
• Improve patients’ self-management skills.

This article goes on to illustrate how three recent major policy initiatives are creating an opening to move beyond this cycle of “crisis care:”

• The Affordable Care Act,
• the Department of Health and Human Services’ National Action Plan to Improve Health Literacy, and
• the Plain Writing Act of 2010

Together, these initiatives are moving the concept and practice of health literacy from the margin to the mainstream.

Stories can be more powerful in communicating critical information than just presenting the facts. And as any parent of a teenager will tell you, teens will listen more to peers than parents. Using teen-created videos to communicate essential health messages is another great idea to promote this aspect of health literacy in young people.

Have you used videos or other forms of storytelling to teach young people about important health issues? Tell us about it!

Fortunately for the newspaper’s readers, the journalist goes on to include a response from Geni Alexander, public information officer for the Columbia/Boone County Department of Public Health and Human Services, who said, “We would be very careful basing” programs “strictly off that study” because it makes the case for technology that TeleVox sells. The article goes on to cite other quality resources that support some of the study’s findings while not endorsing the TeleVox healthcare product line, which includes automated messaging systems, website hosting, and other tools “not just stay in touch but actually engage their patients while saving money in the process” (from the company website).

Health sciences libraries are in the business of helping patrons find evidence-based health and medical information. Here at Eccles Library, we can point you to quality information resources — websites, journals and more — on everything from health statistics, to personal/consumer health, to sites that address rumors and hoaxes on the Web. Got a question? Just ask!

“nearly 90 percent of people would prefer to discuss blood test results during a doctor’s visit, only about 40 percent have discussed their results in person, primarily because the results were either mailed or emailed to the patient or the patient never received the results. In addition, some respondents reported that providers told them to assume everything was okay if the doctor did not notify them about the results.”

As a result, Ortho Clinical Diagnostics and the National Association of Chronic Disease Directors have launched a “Know Your Numbers” Educational Campaign in Conjunction with National Health Literacy Month. These two groups

“convened representatives from government, business, healthcare professional groups and consumer advocates to examine the state of the nation’s health literacy regarding blood tests. The result of this effort, “Fundamentals to Wellness and Prevention: A Call to Action,” is a report that encourages business, healthcare and government leaders to work together to help consumers become more aware of the importance of blood tests, facilitate timely access to test results and help consumers understand their blood test “numbers” so they can translate the knowledge into action.”

One would hope that these groups would also include librarians from public and health libraries, who are also “consumer advocates” that can put such important medical information before the public quickly, easily and for free.

Do you understand the information from your blood tests? Did you have the opportunity to discuss the results with a physician, or were you told that the doctor would call if there was a problem? Tell us about it!

The study revealed that many people overestimate the health literacy of the average health care consumer. Many linked intelligence to health literacy, suggesting people who overdosed on acetaminophen were “stupid” and deserved the outcome.

This is reflective of a wider practice in society: blaming the victim. If something bad happens to someone, they probably deserved it. Our culture, politicians, mainstream media, and even our justice system characterize the unemployed as “lazy,” victims of rape having “asked for it,” and so on. This absolves us of any group responsibility for the troubles that plague our society.

While the results of this study are not surprising, it is important advice to heed: no one wants to change their behavior after being blamed or looked-down upon. If public health campaigns want to improve health outcomes and reduce the costs to our healthcare system, it would be wise to choose positive language.

• Six preconference workshops: build your skills for communicating about health—in person, on the Web, and in print.
• Learn from today’s decision makers and experts.
• Two full days of speakers, panels, and skill-building workshops, plus time to meet with colleagues.

Key topics are listed as:

• Oral communication
• eHealth Literacy
• Usability

To a librarian in an academic medical library, this sounded like a great resource for its intended audience: “physicians, nurses, health education specialists, and public health professionals.” The agenda covers areas such as social media, writing for the web, translation/interpretation, financial literacy, graphic design, accessibility, communicating with seniors, medicaid and health IT, and military programs. It features leaders in these fields lecturing and providing pre-conference workshops on all of these areas.

But no librarians.

While it is important and laudable to help health professionals improve how they communicate information to patients and the public, it is just as important to teach patients how to find and understand this information on their own. At the very least, this event should have invited someone from the National Library of Medicine to talk about MedlinePlus and MedlinePlus Connect, and how they can be used to provide important information to patients and clients.

The program will begin in the spring semester after a newly-formed advisory committee spends six months planning what will best benefit students to learn. Once it begins, most, if not all, of their classes will include subject-relevant information they need to know about access to low cost health care, disease prevention, health insurance and more.

If successful, this will have a cost-saving benefit: it may reduce trips to the emergency room. Typically, those who cannot afford to see a physician wait until an illness or other medical condition has become so severe that they seek emergency care. With knowledge of how to find low-cost health care, fewer trips to the ER should be the result.

Having worked in public education, the number one complaint of students I’ve listened to say school is “boring,” which is usually translated as “not relevant to my life and experience.” Imagine the possibilities if a student has a family member or friend who faces a health  issue, and this student can help ameliorate the situation. If this program proves successful, it could serve as a model for other school districts around the country. And it might, just might, help reduce the rate at which healthcare costs are increasing, at least in this area. Good luck, Harrison High School!

The U.S. government’s Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality and the National Ad Council have teamed up to launch a national health campaign aimed at empowering Latinos to ask their doctors questions.

Television, radio, print and Web ads in $30 million worth of donated advertising space will run in Latino-centric media showing people with ailments such as a bad back getting conflicting advice in places such as the laundromat and the barbershop before going to the doctor (from Fox News Latino).

The campaign is called Conoce las Preguntas (Know the Questions), and the advertisements direct viewers to the campaign’s website, which provides a kind of “roadmap” to a doctor’s visit. For example, it encourages patients to be clear on prescription instructions, and offers suggested follow-up questions to medical diagnoses. And it includes humorous videos such as this one showing  one Latino man asking for advice on an earache, and getting a variety of answers. (Click on the triangle-shaped “play” button to show the video.)

Video Credit: REVOLUCIÓN

Here are a few examples of what’s being discussed (tweeted about) on health literacy (#healthliteracy) on Twitter:

• The non-profit organization Health Literacy Missouri (@HealthLitMO) just published a paper titled “Health Literacy Essential to Successful Implementation of Accountable Care Organizations (ACOs)” bySusan Kendig, JD, MSN and Arthur Culbert, PhD. The paper points out that our current health system’s incentives for health care organizations “rewards volume and intensity of services, resulting in fragmentation and higher costs with little attention to value.” It goes on to document how health literacy is directly related to health outcomes.
• @apdolan has sought the thoughts and input of others on how the new Google+ might be used for health activism for an upcoming blog posting.
• @alixefloyd cheered and linked to an article in the NY Times about how more medical schools are screening their applicants for people skills.
• @ACUnderserved publicized information about a “Health Literacy Innovators Award Contest” sponsored by Health Literacy Innovations, a privately held company that “creates tools to help eliminate medical mistakes and confusion due to low health literacy.”

At first, even this author was skeptical of Twitter. But when one can sample what is of current interest on any given topic instantly, it becomes clear the value this platform has.

What topics do you follow on Twitter? If you have used it for research or to take the pulse of people on a particular subject, how helpful have you found it to be? Tell us!

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) has launched a “National Action Plan to Improve Health Literacy,”  which seeks “to engage organizations, professionals, policymakers, communities, individuals, and families in a linked, multisector effort to improve health literacy.”

The Eccles Health Sciences Library and the Health Literacy Interest Group are offering two webinars on this topic this spring, one on health literacy itself, and the second on the National Action Plan. Here are the details:

Health Literacy in the Real World: Awareness, Ideas, Solutions

• When: March 17, 2011
• Time: 10:00 – 11:00 a.m.
• Where: HSEB 4100 B & C
• Info: Poor health literacy is a major issue in the United States. We see examples of how it affects patients, providers, and the healthcare system every day. This session will look at some of the problems created by poor health literacy, discuss programs and ideas to help improve it on both the patient and provider side, and review some solutions. The upcoming IHA Health Literacy Conference will be reviewed, as well as a discussion of the National Action Plan to Improve Health Literacy.

National Action Plan to Improve Health Literacy

• When: May 4, 2011
• Time: 1:00 – 2:30 p.m.
• Where: HSEB  4100 B & C
• Info: The Institute for Healthcare Advancement is hosting its 10th Annual Health Literacy Conference: “Health Literacy = Effective Communication: Translating Ideas Into Practice” May 4-6, 2011 in Irvine, California. You can attend a pre-conference session “virtually” to discuss the National Action Plan to Improve Health Literacy. Join in the social media discussion and hear how other organizations around the country are using the National Action Plan, and join the discussion with information about what you’re doing or suggestions for others.

Both webinars are FREE, and faculty, staff and students are welcome to attend.

Reference:
¹U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. 2000. Healthy People 2010. 2nd ed. With Understanding and Improving Health and Objectives for Improving Health. 2 vols. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office.