Students’ Roles in Heath Literacy

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Subject: [NIFL-AALPD:2067] Students' roles in health literacy
From: djrosen_at_comcast.net

NIFL-AALPD colleagues,

One challenging area of adult literacy education professional development is health. Many teachers are uncomfortable incorporating health issues in their ESOL/ESL, ABE or GED/EDP classes. Health literacy may require medical knowledge, or it may involve talking about parts of the body (as in the case of HIV/AIDS; breast, cervical or prostate cancer) or behaviors such as drug or alcohol abuse, topics with which teachers often are not comfortable, or which they feel they are not qualified to teach.

In many cases, however, students are comfortable talking about health issues such as these, and in some cases they are experts. For example, they may be health workers or health professionals. In Boston we sometimes have people in ESOL classes who have been medical or health education practitioners in their countries: nurses, doctors....and some have also been teachers. In ABE and GED classes we often have students who are experienced healthcare paraprofessionals, home health care aides, for example.

So, here's my question -- for adult learner leaders and for others on the panel: how could a teacher who wants to introduce health literacy issues into the classroom take advantage of students' health knowledge and expertise? Does anyone have some examples of this being done? Or does anyone have other examples of student leadership in health that you would like to mention? (Of course I want to hear from Massachusetts people, who probably have a lot to say about this, but I am equally interested to hear from those of you in Delaware, Texas, Vermont, Florida, and other states. I believe that one of the founders, and Board Members of VALUE in her working life is a nurse in Indiana. If she has joined this discussion, it would be great to hear from her about this, too.

David J. Rosen
djrosen_at_comcast.net

Subject: [NIFL-AALPD:2070] RE: Students' roles in health literacy
From: mabdullah_at_dcadultliteracy.org

David,

UDC State Education Agency (Washington, DC) is in a partnership with George Washington University, Public Health Administration and other Partners for Health Information. We provide on-line access to health topics that learners are interested in researching via internet thus prompting health discussions amongst teachers and learners. This also relieves the burden of teachers needing prior medical knowledge.

I am forwarding this email to Karyn L. Pomerantz with GWU/HIPS who can give you more information about the partnership and other adult literacy leaders who are involved in this wonderful partnership.

Melva Abdullah
Technical Specialist/Grant Writer
UDC State Education Agency, AE
4200 Connecticut Avenue, NW
Washington, DC 20008
(202) 274-6680
(202) 274-7188 (fax)
email: mabdullah_at_dcadultliteracy.org

Subject: [NIFL-AALPD:2071] Re: Students' roles in health literacy
From: Roberta McKnight

<>Hi David and all,

In my online Curriculum Development course, adult learners/teachers developed a curriculum of their choice as a class project. In some cases, learners chose health literacy, or were already teaching health literacy in some way, but wished to improve/develop the content more completely.

Learners were guided step by step through the curriculum development process, including: needs assessment, goal identification, content/resource identification/development, teaching strategies, and evaluation. Projects real world, hands-on - <>developed over the term with incremental assignments due each week.

Final projects included a PowerPoint that summarized their work, and provided a means to share with one another. We used the discussion component of BlackBoard with a particular question(s) to be addressed each week. This was my favorite part of the course, generating lively discussion of all sorts, and policy concerns in particular. <>

Though learners were encouraged to locate and share resources, they were also referred to some or all of the following resources:<>

Helen Osborne's Health Literacy
http://www.healthliteracy.com/

Plain Language
http://www.plainlanguage.gov/

<>NCSALL Health Literacy Studies
http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/healthliteracy/

<>Kate Singleton's Virginia Adult Education Health Literacy Toolkit
http://www.aelweb.vcu.edu/publications/healthlit/<>

NIFL's Literacy & Health
http://www.nifl.gov/nifl/facts/health.html

<>Pfizer Clear Health Communication
http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/healthliteracy/

<>US National Institutes of Health
http://www.nlm.nih.gov/pubs/cbm/hliteracy.html

<>Canadian National Literacy and Health Program
http://www.nlhp.cpha.ca/

<>US Dept of Health & Human Services
http://www.hrsa.gov/quality/healthlit.htm

<>US National Network of Libraries of Medicine
http://nnlm.gov/scr/conhlth/hlthlit.htm<>

INASP HIF-net at WHO: World Health Organization
http://www.inasp.info/health/hif-net.html

Pan American Health Organization
http://www.paho.org/

EQUITY List: http://listserv.paho.org/Archives/equidad.html

California Health Literacy Initiative
http://cahealthliteracy.org/

Institute for Healthcare Advancement
http://www.iha4health.org/

These are just a few of many resources - others focus on particular health issues such as HIV/AIDS, Diabetes, STDs, etc. If a teacher is uncomfortable discussing health concerns, one alternative is to ask a local organizations such as the Lung Association, HIV/AIDS Center, School of Nursing, etc to provide a consulting teacher.

Cheers!
Roberta McKnight
Healthcare Multimedia Design
http://www.hcmmdesign.net

The strongest principle of growth lies in human choice.
George Eliot

Subject: [NIFL-AALPD:2087] Health Information Partners
From: kpomeran_at_gwu.edu

Greetings. I am one of the organizers of the Health Information Partners coalition that brings health information to communities in the Washington, DC area. Thanks to the DC State Education Agency, Adult Education, we have forged collaborations with the adult education teachers and learners, and the public library system. Health Information Partners includes librarians, health advocates, public health faculty, adult educators, health science student and others to conduct outreach and training to bring health and literacy together.

I would urge adult educators to contact their schools of public health and/or health librarians in their areas to partner together.

karyn
Karyn L. Pomerantz, MLS, MPH
Partners for Health Information | Prevention Res. Ctr.
GW School of Public Health & Hlth Services
2175 K St., NW #716 | Washington, DC 20037
202/416-0408 (voice), 202/416-0433 (fax)
kpomeran_at_gwu.edu

Subject: [NIFL-AALPD:2115] from The Student Action Health Team
From: Saiyi Diaz, Justra Gomez, Vanda Ivanenko, Nadia Karamane, Sidaly Phou, Sandra Sterling and Luz Torres

The following message is from The Student Action Health Team at Operation Bootstrap in Lynn, Massachusetts: Saiyi Diaz, Justra Gomez, Vanda Ivanenko, Nadia Karamane, Sidaly Phou, Sandra Sterling and Luz Torres. We want to tell you about our kind student leadership. It is teaching about health. We work with Marcia Hohn, our facilitator, who is posting this message for us. We also work with community health agencies to learn about the health topics Bootstrap students want to know about and then we decide how to teach the topic. We get money from the Massachusetts Department of Education to do this work.

We are a group of current and former students at Operation Bootstrap. Many of us are immigrants. We understand where students may get confused, may not know terms and may have different cultural beliefs about health. Students feel comfortable with us and appreciate being taught by people like themselves.

When we teach about health, we start from the beginning.

We give vocabulary words to the teachers to go over before we come to the class. These are both health words and hard English words that students may not know. For example, early detection, prevention, virus, blood pressure. We try to use simple words but it is important for students to have a health vocabulary.

We break down the health topic into parts that are easier to understand. For example, when teaching about stress, we break it down into 1) stressful situations, 2) physical reactions, 3) emotional reactions and 4) overall affect on the body that may lead to health problems.

When we teach, we use dramas that show how the health topic is connected to students’ everyday lives and to help students understand. We also use written signs with a few words to describe what is happening in the drama at any given moment. The students feel it, hear it and see it. All that helps them understand better

We always try to get students directly involved. We use small groups where students talk about the health topic in their lives and the lives of their families.

We help connect students to health services. Sometimes health services come to the program for such things as flu shots and blood pressure checks.

We can get answers for students’ health questions.

When we teach students, we also teach the teachers about health. Most teachers like this but it is different for them to be taught by students.

We go to conferences to share with other people how we teach about health. This last year, we presented at The Canadian Public Health Association Conference and the Women and Literacy Conference.

Sometimes we are asked by health people to give feedback about their brochures and their websites. We give feedback on level of words, if they are assuming knowledge people may not have, if it is easy or hard to get around the website or read the brochure.

We are role models for other students - they can see our progress in language, in public speaking and in confidence in ourselves - and maybe it makes them feel like they could do it too. This makes us feel good.

Marcia Drew Hohn, Ed.D.
Director of Public Education and Civic Outreach
Immigrant Learning Center
442 Main Street
Malden, MA 02148
781-322-9777

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