Health Literacy Training Program

According to research from the U. S. Department of Education, only 12 percent of English speaking adults in the United States have proficient health literacy skills. The overwhelming majority of adults have difficulty understanding and using everyday health information that comes from many sources, including the media, web sites, nutrition and medicine labels as well as from health professionals.

The WVGEC and the CAMC Health Education and Research Institute jointly sponsor Interdisciplinary Health Professionals Health Literacy Training Programs several times per year. The target audience for these training programs are: Health Professionals including physicians, dentists, nurses, pharmacists, social workers, allied health professionals, and direct care workers who care for and interact with older adults about their health. The next scheduled training program will be held on: February 1st, 2nd and 3rd, 2012 at the Bridgeport Conference Center, Bridgeport, WV. For more information, please view the Health Literacy Training Program Brochure.

Training Program Objectives

At the completion of the training programs, the participants will be able to:

1. Demonstrate increased knowledge of health literacy issues, including prevalence of low literacy and the associated impact on health outcomes;
2. Identify environmental barriers to patients with limited literacy in the clinical practice setting;
3. Demonstrate verbal communication skills needed for working with limited or low health literacy older adults;
4. Demonstrate effective strategies in teaching and providing feedback;
5. Develop an action plan to implement learned strategies into either student teaching, patient/client encounters, a practice setting environment or community education.

Health Literacy Material