Health Literacy
Innovation in Medical Education Award
University of Chicago Faculty Publish Symptom to Diagnosis: An Evidence Based Guide
Will Harper, MDby Will Harper, MD
"The issue of health literacy is very important. Half of all people in the United States have a less than 8th grade level of reading. This has an impact on health related outcomes. For example, people with limited literacy have worse diabetes control, and are more likely to be hospitalized for any cause. Dr. Don Scott, Dr. Monica Vela, Dr. Sandy Cook and I have designed and are implementing in phases a curriculum to teach our students how to identify people with limited literacy, and how to interact effectively with this population. In the end, we hope to try and prevent some of these adverse outcomes. We have implemented a curriculum in the first and second year Clinical Skills course sequence as well as in the third year Internal Medicine clerkship. In a pilot study conducted last year, we compared 2004 students to 2005 students in their self-reported attitudes toward health literacy behaviors, confidence in using specific health literacy behaviors, and how frequently students use these behaviors. We found that our second year class improved in confidence and frequency of use of health literacy behaviors compared to how they were at the end of the first year. We plan on continuing the curriculum this year for our first and second year students, have added the clerkship component for third years, and hope to see continued improvement from our students at all levels. We sincerely thank all students who contributed to this research by completing the surveys."
Dr. Harper received the Innovation in Medical Education Award at the 2005 Society of General Internal Medicine Regional Meeting where he presented his work on a health literacy curriculum.
