Health Literacy: Cancer Prevention Strategies for Early Adults Simmons, Robert A.; Cosgrove, Susan C.; Romney, Martha C. ...
American journal of preventive medicine,
September 2017, 2017-Sep, 2017-09-00, 20170901, Letnik:
53, Številka:
3
Journal Article
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Health literacy, the degree to which individuals have the capacity to obtain, process, and understand health information and services needed to make health decisions, is an essential element for ...early adults (aged 18–44 years) to make informed decisions about cancer. Low health literacy is one of the social determinants of health associated with cancer-related disparities. Over the past several years, a nonprofit organization, a university, and a cancer center in a major urban environment have developed and implemented health literacy programs within healthcare systems and in the community. Health system personnel received extensive health literacy training to reduce medical jargon and improve their patient education using plain language easy-to-understand written materials and teach-back, and also designed plain language written materials including visuals to provide more culturally and linguistically appropriate health education and enhance web-based information. Several sustainable health system policy changes occurred over time. At the community level, organizational assessments and peer leader training on health literacy have occurred to reduce communication barriers between consumers and providers. Some of these programs have been cancer specific, including consumer education in such areas as cervical cancer, skin cancer, and breast cancer that are targeted to early adults across the cancer spectrum from prevention to treatment to survivorship. An example of consumer-driven health education that was tested for health literacy using a comic book–style photonovel on breast cancer with an intergenerational family approach for Chinese Americans is provided. Key lessons learned from the health literacy initiatives and overall conclusions of the health literacy initiatives are also summarized.
Addressing public health challenges necessitates policy approaches, but concerns persist about public health graduates' preparedness to advocate.
This qualitative study sought to assess advocacy ...content and skills taught to Master of Public Health students enrolled in US accredited schools and programs of public health (SPPHs) by analyzing 98 course syllabi submitted to the Council on Education for Public Health (CEPH) between 2019 and 2021. Syllabi were submitted by SPPHs during their (re)accreditation process to demonstrate compliance with CEPH's advocacy competency requirement.
Qualitative content analysis study. Syllabi were analyzed using MAXQDA Qualitative Data Analysis Software using a 2-coder approach.
SPPHs accredited by CEPH.
Ninety-eight syllabi submitted to CEPH by 22 schools of public health and 54 programs of public health.
Exemplary language from advocacy courses and assignments and aggregate frequency of syllabi advocacy content and skills.
Most advocacy courses (61%) were survey, health policy, or health care delivery courses, covering policy (66%), policy communication (46%), coalition-building (45%), lobbying (36%), community organizing (33%), and media advocacy (24%) skills. Only 7% prioritized advocacy skill instruction, and 10% addressed how to advocate in an equitable way.
Defining public health advocacy and essential skills is crucial. Issuing competency guidelines, supporting advocacy faculty, offering standardized training, and expanding experiential learning are important first steps. More research is needed on how academic institutions are incorporating equity skill training into courses, whether separate from or combined with advocacy skills.
At a time when environmental public health crises dominate headlines, ranging from the COVID-19 pandemic originating from a zoonotic source to extreme weather events linked to global climate change, ...we want to call attention to the erosion of environmental health (EH) content within master of public health (MPH) programs. The lack of EH content in MPH programs places the already strained public health workforce at risk for not adequately understanding the close interdependence of health on the environment and the major public health challenges of our time, from climate change to systemic racism. A major contributing factor to the decline in EH curricula may be the revision of the Council on Education for Public Health (CEPH) accreditation standards for schools and programs in public health in 2016, which was done with the intention that graduates from all MPH programs would demonstrate foundational public health knowledge and competencies.1 Yet five years later, the curricular revisions and course restructuring initiated by public health schools and programs in response to the revised CEPH requirements have resulted in a reduction of EH courses offered.Other contributing factors to the decline in EH content could be at play, including not understanding the foundational role of the environment in health and years of inaction on climate change, leading to a consequential lack of demand from students. However, interests of incoming students appear to be shifting as they are in other health professions seeking to add EH content to prepare their future workforce to be skilled in managing complex, interdisciplinary public health challenges of environmental origin. The Association for Prevention Teaching and Research, via a working group on EH competency, reviewed these trends in public health education and expressed concern over this disconnect in the public health learning curriculum. Here we describe more fully the unintended consequences for graduate public health education of the CEPH accreditation revisions related to EH, the potential consequences for the public health workforce, and recommendations for reversing these effects and fostering innovative EH education for the next generation of public health professionals.
Global health often entails partnerships between institutions in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) that were previously colonized and high-income countries (HICs) that were colonizers. Little ...attention has been paid to the legacy of former colonial relationships and the influence they have on global health initiatives. There have been recent calls for the decolonization of global health education and the reexamination of assumptions and practices under pinning global health partnerships. Medicine's role in colonialism cannot be ignored and requires critical review. There is a growing awareness of how knowledge generated in HICs defines practices and informs thinking to the detriment of knowledge systems in LMICs. Additionally, research partnerships often benefit the better-resourced partner. In this article, the authors offer a brief analysis of the intersections between colonialism, medicine, and global health education and explore the lingering impact of colonialist legacies on current global health programs and partnerships. They describe how "decolonized" perspectives have not gained sufficient traction and how inequitable power dynamics and neocolonialist assumptions continue to dominate. They discuss 5 approaches, and highlight resources, that challenge colonial paradigms in the global health arena. Furthermore, they argue for the inclusion of more transfor mative learning approaches to promote change in attitudes and practice. They call for critical reflection and concomitant action to shift colonial paradigms toward more equitable partnerships in global education.
Poor eye-health knowledge and health literacy are pervasive, contributing to worse outcomes. This study aims to examine short- and long-term eye-health knowledge retention following eye-health ...education interventions in adults.
Vision Detroit was an outreach vision screening program that integrated a 5-Point Teaching Intervention (5PTI), at a Southwest Community Center (SW-CC) from 2015-2017. The 5PTI consists of eye-health learning points developed to verbally educate patients. During vision screenings, eye-health knowledge tests were administered before and after 5PTI (Test 1 and Test 2, respectively). In 2016, Community Eye-Health Education Interventions (CHEI) were initiated at the SW-CC. During CHEI, bilingual healthcare students taught voluntary SW-CC members the 5PTI learning points, regardless of participant interest to attend future screenings. CHEI sessions occurred on separate dates prior to vision screening events. Test 1 and Test 2 scores were compared for all participants. Test 1 scores were compared for those who underwent CHEI prior to vision screening (CHEI positive) versus those who did not (CHEI negative).
Two-hundred-seventeen adult patients met inclusion criteria, with 75.8% women, 82.6% Hispanic, mean age 50.4 ± 16.2 years, 74.6% had high school or less education, and 49.2% had health insurance. Test 1 to Test 2 scores improved after 5PTI (71.2 ± 26.4% vs. 97.2 ± 9.9%, p < .00001). Forty-eight participants attended CHEI and subsequent vision screening. Test 1 scores were higher among those CHEI positive versus CHEI negative (81.1 ± 2.1% vs. 68.3 ± 3.4%, p = .0027).
Simple eye-health education interventions, delivered during vision screenings and via community-based education, can improve eye-health knowledge.
Global health is valued as an applied multidisciplinary field that provides opportunities for faculty, students, and trainees to work together with international and interprofessional partners on ...developing creative solutions to major global challenges.1 Over the past decade, many universities have launched initiatives to support global health engagement by students and scholars in public health, medicine, nursing, the arts and sciences, and other areas of study.2 Each discipline engaged in global health education brings its own lens to the work, including public health. "3 There are at least two critical underlying knowledge areas students must master before they can plan appropriate interventions: an understanding of the major causes of morbidity and mortality in countries with different income levels and an awareness of the variety of social, political, economic, environmental, biological, behavioral, and other determinants of health that contribute to the global burden of disease. The most popular current competencies include ones related to health systems and organizations, the social and environmental determinants of health, the global burden of disease, and various aspects of health equity, human rights, ethics, and culture.
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