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Bridging Faith, Culture, and Care: Practical Strategies for Pediatric Mental Health Professionals

By IHA Team posted 23 days ago
Bridging Faith, Culture, and Care: Practical Strategies for Pediatric Mental Health Professionals By Dr. Linda Gordon, MD, MPH, PMP Introduction: From Cultural Awareness to Faith-Integrated Care In pediatric behavioral health, clinical excellence alone is not enough. Healing happens most deeply when faith, culture, and evidence-based practice converge in the lives of families. While I am not a parent myself, my vocation as a physician and public health professional is guided by a desire to ease the health literacy burden of parents—helping them navigate the often-complex pathways toward mental wellness for their children. ...

A Stroke of a Pen Raises Health Literacy Awareness

By IHA Team posted 09-30-2025
A Stroke of a Pen Raises Health Literacy Awareness By: Genelle Lamont, Ph.D., M.P.H. In 2022, I hopped on a virtual call with the late Alisha Odhiambo, founder and chair of the Minnesota Health Literacy Partnership (MNHLP) to brainstorm new ways to expand health literacy awareness. Before the COVID-19 pandemic, we had co-hosted two statewide conferences with the Minnesota Department of Health to train public health and healthcare professionals. Now our goal was to advocate for system-level changes and engage policymakers. Inspired by Helen Osborne’s Health Literacy Out Loud podcast and Health Literacy Month Handbook , we realized ...

Lost in the Fog of Caregiving

By IHA Team posted 08-26-2025
Lost in the Fog of Caregiving By: Geri Lynn Baumblatt, MA Quick poll: Do you help a partner, an aging relative, friend, adult sibling, or ill or disabled child with things like: Medical appointments or medications Meals, bills, or insurance Care coordination Hands-on care If you’re like 1 in 4 people in the U.S., you said yes. 1 In fact, many people (about 25% of caregivers) even care for more than one adult. 2 Why Caregiving Is Often Overlooked However, we usually think of ourselves as daughters, sons, partners, or friends — not as informal/family caregivers or care partners. And both are true. But, over time — ...

What You Need to Know About CAR T-cell Therapy and Why Communication Matters

By IHA Team posted 07-31-2025
What You Need to Know About CAR T-cell Therapy and Why Communication Matters By: Neha Rai, PhD When a retired U.S. Air Force pilot walked into his doctor’s office nearly 20 years after first being treated for lymphoma, he did not expect to hear that his cancer had returned and was more aggressive than before. He had once responded well to immunotherapy for cancer and had gone back to an active life flying planes. Traditional chemotherapy was not an option for him due to the associated risks and complications at his age. He was ready to give up until his doctor suggested something different: CAR T-cell therapy. The results were ...

Health Literate Schools Framework: Improving School Health Literacy to Increase Health and Education Outcomes

By IHA Team posted 07-14-2025
Health Literate Schools Framework: Improving School Health Literacy to Increase Health and Education Outcomes By: Orkan Okan Societies need their education systems to adopt a systematic health literacy strategy for schools and teacher training. Health literacy is a critical determinant of health and well-being for children and adolescents. Low health literacy among youth, especially those from disadvantaged backgrounds, is linked to poorer health behaviors and outcomes, as well as lower educational achievement. Equipping children and adolescents with health literacy skills is essential for helping them identify misinformation, critically navigate complex ...

Breaking the Silence: Why Maternal Health Literacy Is Essential for Miscarriage Care

By IHA Team posted 06-23-2025
Breaking the Silence: Why Maternal Health Literacy Is Essential for Miscarriage Care By: Diana Peña Gonzalez, MPH, MCHES Keywords: maternal health literacy, miscarriage care, pregnancy loss, reproductive health education, patient empowerment She sat on the ER waiting room chair, cradling her stomach, panic rising as blood began to soak her clothing and the chair beneath her. She knew she was miscarrying but had no idea what to do or who to ask for help. After hours of waiting, she was briefly examined, given pain medication and reading materials, and sent home to miscarry alone. She locked herself in the bathroom and whispered to her husband through ...

Inclusive by Design: How Digital Tools Are Shaping the Future of Health Communication

By IHA Team posted 05-22-2025
Inclusive by Design: How Digital Tools Are Shaping the Future of Health Communication By: Diana Peña Gonzalez, MPH, MCHES At this year’s conference, digital innovation took center stage as leaders explored a vital question: How can we design the future of health communication to be more inclusive, more human, and more equitable from the start? From visionary keynote speakers to hands-on sessions, three critical voices mapped out that future in powerful ways. Here are my top takeaways, along with new questions they inspired. 1. “Technology is the fastest, most scalable path to health equity.” —Jessica Brooks Woods Jessica Brooks Woods emphasized ...

Healthcare Literacy in Schools: An Opportunity to Address the U.S. Healthcare Crisis

By IHA Team posted 03-28-2025
Healthcare Literacy in Schools: An Opportunity to Address the U.S. Healthcare Crisis By Fred Garner, MD, FAAP The U.S. healthcare system is in crisis. Among industrialized countries, the United States ranks low for patient outcomes and satisfaction and high in costs. Many Americans struggle to choose, navigate, and cost-effectively utilize healthcare. One of the most effective ways to address these challenges is to integrate healthcare literacy into school curricula. This approach can significantly improve patient outcomes and satisfaction and reduce individual and overall healthcare costs. Why Schools Must Teach Healthcare Literacy Healthcare ...

Harnessing the Power of AI to Create Theory-Driven Health Literacy Resources

By IHA Team posted 03-05-2025
Harnessing the Power of AI to Create Theory-Driven Health Literacy Resources By Ayo Olagoke, PhD, MPH Health literacy plays a crucial role in empowering individuals to access, understand, and apply health information to make informed decisions about their health and well-being. But achieving this goal is no small task. Diffe rent communities require tailored resources that cater to their unique needs, and designing these resources involves drawing on proven frameworks and theories. While theories are essential for guiding and predicting outcomes, creating health literacy materials that are grounded in theory can be ...

Disaster Readiness and Health Literacy

By IHA Team posted 02-18-2025
Disaster Readiness and Health Literacy By Rima E. Rudd, Sc.D. During this last year, every region of our country has faced at least one natural disaster related to fire or ice, heat or cold, winds or high waters, infectious disease, or cybersecurity. For many of our communities, consequences were dire, and homes, health, work, and security were compromised. Public Health and Disaster Planning and Management Public health focuses on the duty to protect and promote the well-being and health of the public. This mission includes a responsibility for research, for advance planning, for informing people of threats to health and safety, ...

Improving Communication: How Pediatricians Can Support Non-English-Speaking Parents

By IHA Team posted 02-03-2025
Improving Communication: How Pediatricians Can Support Non-English-Speaking Parents By Abigail Preston Many individuals experience feelings of fear or anxiety when going to the doctor. They may find healthcare settings scary due to not understanding what is happening, or not knowing what providers will do. Imagine going to see a healthcare provider who does not speak your own language. Having someone speak to you quickly about unfamiliar topics can lead to no understanding at all and make you more confused than when you came in. More than 25 million individuals in the United States do not speak English, leading to a huge communication ...

Making Free Health Clinics More Accessible

By IHA Team posted 11-12-2024
Making Free Health Clinics More Accessible Free clinics have a massive potential to serve the healthcare needs of uninsured and underinsured individuals. But there’s a major issue that needs to be solved. By Reyhan Haider Free clinics have the potential to be a lifeline for the over 26 million uninsured and millions more underinsured individuals in the U.S. Yet, despite their importance, these clinics are often underutilized . One of the critical reasons for this is the pervasive lack of health literacy. Knowing how to navigate the healthcare system—where to find care, understanding basic health concepts, and making informed decisions—is ...

Shaping a Health Literate Organization

By IHA Team posted 10-21-2024
Shaping a Health Literate Organization By Greg O’Neill , MSN, APRN, AGCNS-BC, NPD-BC, NEA-BC Stakeholder : What is it that you do here? Me : I boil the ocean, one cup at a time. As a champion of health literacy, you want to make your own organization more health literate. As we learn more about how to help patients, families, and communities understand their health and take action to improve their quality of life, a few things become clear: Becoming a health literate organization will generally be slower and more complex than we wish it was. It will require a culture change in the way all health professionals practice ...

AI Solutions Hub: Navigating the AI and Health Literacy Nexus

By IHA Team posted 10-09-2024
AI Solutions Hub: Navigating the AI and Health Literacy Nexus By Michael Villaire, MSLM We welcome you to explore a new hub on the Institute for Healthcare Advancement (IHA) Health Literacy Solutions Center: AI Solutions Hub: Navigating the AI and Health Literacy Nexus . AI raises questions that have worked their way into the national (and international) conversation, such as: What is it? Is it dangerous? How can it help me? How can it make my work more efficient? The AI Solutions Hub aims to provide a forum for all of us to learn, share, and ask questions about ...

Design Your Website With Health Literacy in Mind

By IHA Team posted 08-29-2024
Design Your Website With Health Literacy in Mind Tips for Creating User-Friendly, Accessible Websites for Diverse Audiences An Interview With Christi Williford , BFA, and Elena Haskins , BS When someone goes to your website to learn about your organization, access your services, or get actionable healthcare information, can they find what they need — and can they understand it? Or do they struggle through cluttered layouts and confusing navigation hierarchies? Are they confronted with large, dense blocks of text full of medical jargon? Do they click around in a vain search for vital health information? In other words, is ...

How to Plan for Health Literacy Month

By IHA Team posted 08-02-2024
How to Plan for Health Literacy Month Get Ideas and Insights for Your Organization by Learning from Penn Medicine By Carolyn Cutilli, PhD, RN, NPD-BC At Penn Medicine, we celebrate Health Literacy Month each year in October by hosting educational events and activities that increase patient and staff awareness. Over the past decade, our Health Literacy Month celebration has grown from individual hospital events presented by staff to system-wide activities including national speakers. As a patient education specialist at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, I work with a team of staff and patients at the health system level as well as ...

How to Write and Evaluate Health Questionnaires, Surveys, and Forms

By IHA Team posted 06-03-2024
How to Write and Evaluate Health Questionnaires, Surveys, and Forms Get the Data You Need by Creating and Assessing Questionnaires with Health Literacy in Mind By Katie Leath, MPH, MA In this Blog: Why questionnaires need different assessments How to create better questionnaires, surveys, and forms Improving survey results by focusing on health literacy Think of the last time you gave a patient, community member, or study participant something to fill out. Maybe it was a questionnaire for public health surveillance or a research study, or perhaps you were collecting patient-reported outcomes or intake paperwork and ...

AI and Health Literacy  4 Sessions You Won’t Want to Miss at the 2024 IHA Conference

By IHA Team posted 05-03-2024
AI and Health Literacy 4 Sessions You Won’t Want to Miss at the 2024 IHA Conference By Diana Gonzalez, MPH, MCHES Across virtually every industry — including healthcare and health communications — it’s hard to find a tech innovation as impactful as artificial intelligence (AI). Whatever your role in communicating with patients, the public, or others in the healthcare environment, generative AI tools such as ChatGPT, Bard, Claude, and more seem to promise to make your work easier and more productive. Of course, crafting health-literate communications is not as straightforward as typing a prompt into an AI app. When producing communication ...

Healthcare Communications, AI Policies, and You

By IHA Team posted 04-23-2024
Healthcare Communications, AI Policies, and You Health Literacy Specialists Should Be Part of AI Policy Planning By Tracy Mehan, AI Subject Matter Expert I was recently asked to give a talk about what healthcare organizations should consider when developing policies around employee use of programs that utilize artificial intelligence (AI). To prepare, I researched who is typically involved in creating these policies and what factors organizations weigh as they develop them. What I found is that, typically, the people in the room where decisions are being made are members of the C-suite and IT. That’s it. Who does this leave out? The frontline ...

Healthcare Communications, AI Policies, and You

By IHA Team posted 04-23-2024
Healthcare Communications, AI Policies, and You Health Literacy Specialists Should Be Part of AI Policy Planning By Tracy Mehan, AI Subject Matter Expert I was recently asked to give a talk about what healthcare organizations should consider when developing policies around employee use of programs that utilize artificial intelligence (AI). To prepare, I researched who is typically involved in creating these policies and what factors organizations weigh as they develop them. What I found is that, typically, the people in the room where decisions are being made are members of the C-suite and IT. That’s it. Who does this leave out? The frontline ...