HELP - The Health Literacy Hero for June 2013

We are proud to reproduce an extract from Helen Osborne’s Newsletter: *  HL Hero The Health Literacy Hero for June 2013 is HELP (Health Education Library for People) based in Mumbai, India. Founded as a modest-sized patient education resource center in 1997 by Drs. Aniruddha and Anjali Malpani, HELP is now India's largest patient education center--housing thousands of books, pamphlets,health care magazines, and audiovisuals on all aspects of health and disease.   HELP offers free public seminars in Mumbai nearly every day. HELP also provides an online resource center where users worldwide can ask health questions and search its vast medical knowledge base. Anjoo Chandiramani and her staff of librarians maintain the HELP collection. Here's the link,  http://www.healthlibrary.com   HELP is just one of many worldwide efforts to improve health understanding. Please email me with your suggestions about other individuals, teams, coalitions, or organizations to honor as Health Literacy Heroes. Read the complete newsletter at : www.healthliteracy.com About Helen Osborne Helen Osborne, M.Ed., OTR/L Producer & Host of Health Literacy Out Loud Helen Osborne knows how hard it can be to understand health information. As an occupational therapist, she treated many patients with limited literacy or language skills. As an educator, she is well aware of people’s varied learning needs and styles. And as a patient, Helen knows how very hard it is to listen and remember when feeling scared, sick, or overwhelmed. Now as a health literacy consultant, Helen is working to make a difference. Helen speaks, writes, and consults about health literacy. She is president of Health Literacy Consulting and founder of Health Literacy Month. Helen presents at conferences across the US and Canada. She also serves as plain language writer and editor on a wide variety of projects. In fact, two of these just won “gold” plain language awards from the National Institute for Health. Now in her tenth year, Helen is a columnist for the Boston Globe Media’s On Call magazine. She is also author of several books including the award-winning Health Literacy from A-Z. And in keeping with today’s trends and technology, Helen just launched the podcast series, Health Literacy Out Loud. Whether in-person, in print, or by podcast — Helen lets the world know why health literacy matters! Subscribe to What's New *

Helping People Learn About Health in India

Aniruddha Malpani MD is a long-time health literacy advocate. He not only is an IVF (fertility) specialist in Mumbai, India but also runs the world’s largest free patient education library, HELP: Health Education Library for People. Dr. Malpani believes that empowered patients can help heal “sick” healthcare systems. In this video, Dr. Malpani talks with Helen Osborne about how this vision is happening in India.

 Podcast Video [ 14:47 ] Download

Author: Helen Osborne - Categories: Podcasts
Helen Osborne, M.Ed., OTR/L is the founder and president of Health Literacy Consulting based in Natick, Massachusetts. She is also the producer and host of the podcast series, Health Literacy Out Loud. In addition, Helen is the founder of Health Literacy Month – a worldwide campaign to raise awareness about the importance of understandable health information.

Health Literacy - Making Sense of Online Health Information

                        

Increasingly, health information is accessed via the internet, but a number of barriers prevent consumers making effective use of it. These barriers include inadequate skills to search, evaluate and use the information. It has not yet been demonstrated whether training consumers to use the internet for health information can result in positive health outcomes.  

People with low health literacy typically:

–Fail to seek preventive care

–Are less likely to follow treatment plans

–Have increased rates of hospitalization and use of emergency services

–Have difficulty understanding written and oral communication

–Stay in the hospital longer than someone with higher health literacy

There are thousands of health-related websites on the Internet. Some of the information on these websites is reliable. Some of it is not. Some of the information is current. Some of it is not. Choosing which website to trust is worth thinking about.

Some questions you may ask:

1. How do I find reliable health information online?

2. Who sponsors the website? Can you easily identify the sponsor?

3. Who wrote the information?

4. Who reviews the information? Does the website have an editorial board?

5. When was the information written?

Use your common sense and good judgment when evaluating health information online. There are websites on nearly every conceivable health topic and no rules overseeing the quality of the information. Take a deep breath and think a bit before acting on any health information you find on the web. Don't count on any one website. If possible, check with several sources to confirm the accuracy of your results. And remember to talk with your doctor.