Page 93 - Health Literacy, eHealth, and Communication: Putting the Consumer First: Workshop Summary

Health Literacy, eHealth, and Communication: Putting the Consumer First: Workshop Summary

HeALtH LiteRACY, eHeALtH, AnD CoMMUniCAtion

tion messages. They started with an exhaustive search of all HHS docu-
ments and have winnowed the material down to five messages. So there
is recognition that this is an important avenue to pursue.
One audience member asked if AHRQ is tracking who is asking for
and using the health literacy guide and if there are plans to determine
whether or not the guide makes a difference. Brach responded that AHRQ
tracks the number of hits and downloads of the document, but it cannot
collect information about who is using the guide and what their experi-
ence is. It might be possible to conduct a study to examine those issues.

HEALTH LITERACy, HEALTH INFORMATION TECHNOLOgy,
AND HEALTHy PEOPLE 2020
Linda Harris, Ph.D.
Lead, Health Communication and eHealth team
office of Disease Preention and Health Promotion

Charles P. Friedman, Ph.D.
Deputy national Coordinator for
Health information technology
Department of Health and Human Serices

Healthy People is a comprehensive set of national 10-year objectives
that provide a framework for public health priorities and actions, Harris
explained. As many know, Healthy People 2010 has a communication
focus and, within that focus, one of the objectives is to improve and
address limited health literacy. Other topics in the 2010 communication
focus area are meaningful access to the Internet, health website quality,
research-based health communication with an evaluation component, and
supporting patient-provider communication.
Planning for the Healthy People 2020 is now under way, with the
mission, the vision, and the objectives yet to be defined. Work began in
2005 with meetings of experts to provide suggestions for how it should
be organized. In 2007 this group presented its ideas. The year 2008 has
been and will continue to be focused on building a framework for Healthy
People 2020. During 2009, measurable objectives will be developed and,
in 2010, Healthy People 2020 will be launched.
The group of experts involved in the planning of Healthy People 2020
presented a different approach from the alphabetical categorization of
objectives in Healthy People 2010, proposing two major focus areas. The
current idea is that the primary focus would be on risk factors and deter-
minants of health, that is, on the primary factors related to health and
disparities. The secondary focus would be on diseases and disorders.

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