Functional Health Literacy Training for Seniors with Health Profession Students

An undeniable change in the health environment is the increased responsibility for seniors to understand, even to case-manage their own health care. There has been a concordant increase in concern about the skills of the vulnerable aged to utilize health care. One aspect of Functional Health Literacy is the empowerment of seniors to communicate with their health care providers and receive information they can use for self-care. Additionally, more health professions students must be reached to interest them in this topic and develop their skills in encouraging senior participation in health promotion. This session reports an IRB approved research/intervention project targeting 300 rural elders who were senior center attendees. The project used evidence based education from NIH and AMA sources such as Medline PLUS and ASK ME THREE for workshop content. Delivery and evaluation of the project employed a unique design with a large number of health profession students and interdisciplinary faculty presenters. Data collected on student experience affirmed the positive effect of contact with seniors that were expected. Senior data revealed an increase in knowledge and a statistically significant increase in confidence in talking with a heath provider. Project researchers redesigned the follow-up measure to test for lasting effect and application to actual health behaviors.