October is Health Literacy Month. This special edition of the What's New e-newsletter highlights some of the many ways that advocates everywhere are raising awareness about the need for understandable health information.
Thanks for all that each of you do. And double thanks to those who shared ways they are raising health literacy awareness this year.
Together, we truly do make a health literacy difference! ~Helen
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Health Literacy Month 2012
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Health Literacy Month 2012. Organizations and individuals everywhere helped promote the importance of understandable health information. Here's a listing of just some of many events that happened this year. - Internet Cooking Princess blog dedicated the month of October to sharing healthy recipes, healthy living tips, and related postings.
- Workbase's Health Literacy e-News sent out extra newsletter editions highlighting health literacy initiatives happening in New Zealand.
- Family First Health highlighted Health Literacy Month and National Apple Month (both in October) on their Facebook page.
- Latora Grant Scott, of Baylor University Medical Center, completed her dissertation research on providers' perception of health literacy and how those influence 30-day readmissions of heart failure patients.
- PamLab LLC converted their Metanx package patient insert into health literacy/plain language.
- Library Services at Trinitas Regional Medical Center raised health literacy awareness through interactive games about heart attack, stroke, and common medical terminology.
- Nancy Elliott did a Lunch-n-Learn about health literacy for members of the National Nursing Practice Network.
- Lisa Pittman highlighted Health Literacy Month in a newsletter for her local chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution.
- Dr. Aniruddha Malpani and Anjoo Chandiramani are planning a health literacy conference in Mumbai this December (I'm keynoting the conference and leading a workshop). They also created health literacy e-posters available at Health Education Library for People (HELP), are preparing to launch the book "Promoting Health Literacy to Put Patients First," and otherwise are raising health literacy awareness throughout India.
- Mary Ann Collado-Wharton works as a nurse at a Medicare Advantage company. She participated in many ways including having a wellness bulletin board in the employee break room, hosting a 3-month walking program at work, and sponsoring diabetic educators to participate in a community health fair.
- Asbestos Disease Awareness Organization honored Health Literacy Month by blogging about asbestos exposure prevention, high-risk occupations, and early symptoms of asbestos disease.
- Rose Pimentel is a psychologist and research fellow at the National School of Public Health in Portugal. She writes: Portuguese health literacy research is being "saved" by teachers of low literacy adults from a stop in funding. These "Health Literacy Heroes" have volunteered to allow the maintenance of data collection to study the suitability of obesity and associated disease information to people with low literacy skills.
- Charlotte Cushman who works at the Perkins School for the Blind wrote a blog post about health literacy ideas for people who are blind or visually impaired including those who are deaf-blind or have other disabilities. (I will interview her for a HLOL podcast on this topic.)
- Robyn Hunt of New Zealand wrote a post on her Low Visionary blog about health literacy from a disability perspective.
And I celebrated Health Literacy Month by welcoming our first grandchild, Julia!
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Sponsor
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Boston University's Master of Science in Health Communication (MSHC) online program is proud to support Health Literacy Month. The MSHC program addresses the growing need for health care professionals to become leaders in communicating important and often complex health information to patients and the general public. By utilizing effective communication strategies, marketing/PR concepts, and social media solutions, students and graduates are helping to improve the public's comprehension of health issues in their communities and across the globe. Click here to learn more.
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