The 131st Annual Meeting (November 15-19, 2003) of APHA

Abstract #66585

Antor N. Ola, MPH, Community Health Sciences, Tulane University School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine, 1440 Canal Street, SL 29, New Orleans, LA 70112 and Jeanette H. Magnus, MD, PhD, Community Health Sciences, Tulane University School of Public Health, 1440 Canal Street, SL 29, New Orleans, LA 70112, 504-588-5100, jmagnus@tulane.edu.

One of the more significant challenges in public health education and promotion is patients’ inability to read, understand and act appropriately on a variety of health-related information. Although suggestions have been made to translate health information into everyday language and to use pictograms, barriers to effective communication are many, as is evident in the numerous health disparities across socioeconomic, gender and racial/ethnic groups. In response to these barriers, Tulane Xavier National Center of Excellence in Women's Health developed an innovative health education program coined Healthy Tales. Healthy Tales is a health education method using narrative storytelling in a fairy tale format where body parts and diseases are presented as characters within the story. In accordance with the Health Belief Model, the stories are presented to promote the individual's sense of empowerment and control by intermittently incorporating empowering phrases and wise sayings throughout the stories. The proposed abstract will present the strikingly positive results of a Healthy Tales pilot program addressing cardiovascular disease risk factors, and tailored to a low literacy African American female population. Over 90% of the pilot participants found the format to be very good in influencing their health information understanding; and all 500 participants expressed the desire to hear more stories. Further research is needed to determine the Healthy Tales’ effectiveness in comparison to traditional methods of health education.

Learning Objectives:

At the conclusion of this session, the participants will be able to:
• Discuss innovative methods to improve health education and promotion.
• Recognize storytelling as a viable health education method for low literate populations.

Presenting author's disclosure statement:
I do not have any significant financial interest/arrangement or affiliation with any organization/institution whose products or services are being discussed in this session.