Lilly for Better Health™ expands website's non-product-branded health education resources, focuses on healthy behavior skills

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Jul 10, 2014, 01:00 ET

INDIANAPOLIS, July 10, 2014 /PRNewswire/ -- Eli Lilly and Company (NYSE: LLY) has rebooted the Lilly for Better Health™ program, with several innovative enhancements to lillyforbetterhealth.com that help enrich the user experience with Lilly's non-product-branded health education.

Changes to the site include improved ease of use, interactive engagement and an updated mobile experience.

Lilly for Better Health is one of the many ways Lilly goes beyond medicine to support individuals and caregivers on their health care journeys. The program, and its website, lillyforbetterhealth.com, recognized by the MarCom Awards, Aster Awards and eHealthcare for excellence in health communication, offer nearly 100 non-product-branded health education resources in English and Spanish, plus information on health-related topics, such as diabetes, depression, exercise and stress.

"It's our goal to provide educational health and wellness tools that people consider relevant and useful," said Brad Woodward, M.D., senior medical director, Lilly Bio-Medicines. "We deliver them online in a way that is engaging, easy-to-use and interactive."

Engaging design, interactive features
The entire site was built with a responsive design ensuring a seamless experience from desktop to mobile or tablet. New features include an enhanced filtering tool that enables visitors to search nearly 100 health education resources by topic, language and format.

The resources include short videos on nutrition and physical activity that highlight ways to take small steps toward a healthier lifestyle, quizzes and interactive activities and brochures. Many of these resources are available in Spanish, and were created using the Information-Motivation-Behavioral Skills (IMB) Model to be easy to understand, use and act on.

Health topics focus on condition management of diagnoses, such as diabetes and depression, as well as areas of holistic health, such as family and caregiver support, managing pain and living well. Resources can be downloaded, printed, emailed and shared via social media. And a limited number of copies of certain health education materials can be ordered through the Contact Us section.

To encourage a two-way exchange, visitors are invited to provide real-time feedback on the relevance and usefulness of health education resources with a "rate this" star-rating feature, and also are able to respond to a regularly updated knowledge-based health question. Regardless of which answer is selected, the correct response is shown, with tips on incorporating a positive and healthy behavior into everyday life.

The Lilly for Better Health website helps address the health needs of the growing U.S. Latino/Hispanic population with nearly half of the website in Spanish. In the En Espanol section, visitors can engage and interact with health quizzes and activities. The Mi Salud interactive health area provides practical tips on managing health conditions, such as diabetes and depression.

Aiding in understanding
Lillyforbetterhealth.com is sensitive to health literacy – an individual's ability to obtain, process and understand health information and services needed to make appropriate health decisions. Several sections of the website underwent an assessment for health literacy from the University of California, Berkeley and received a "superior" Suitability Assessment of Material (SAM) rating.

With health literacy in mind, a conscious effort was made to write short content focused on behavior skills, not medical facts. The site includes language that is positive and people-focused to help in the understanding of health topics, including stress, bone health and exercise.

One component of creating a health literate experience was the addition of a sound icon in the My Health section. This feature offers an auditory pronunciation of difficult or complex words and phrases. The sound feature helps clue visitors to a word they may have seen in handouts from their doctor or heard when visiting a health care provider. The icon, in conjunction with other cues, such as subheads and images, helps to reinforce the content and lead to a greater understanding of the topic.

"Our focus on health literacy is a commitment to the public, caregivers and health care providers that our resources are not one-size-fits-all," Woodward said. "Great content doesn't matter if individuals can't take your resources and use them to make sustainable, positive life changes."

About Lilly for Better Health™
Lilly for Better Health is one of the many ways Lilly goes beyond medicine to support individuals and caregivers on their health care journeys. The program, and its website, www.lillyforbetterhealth.com, recognized by the Health Information Resource Center, MarCom Awards, Aster Awards and eHealthcare for excellence in health communication, offer nearly 100 non-product-branded health education resources in English and Spanish, plus information on health-related topics, such as diabetes, depression, exercise and stress.

About Eli Lilly and Company
Lilly is a global healthcare leader that unites caring with discovery to make life better for people around the world. We were founded more than a century ago by a man committed to creating high-quality medicines that meet real needs, and today we remain true to that mission in all our work. Across the globe, Lilly employees work to discover and bring life-changing medicines to those who need them, improve the understanding and management of disease, and give back to communities through philanthropy and volunteerism. To learn more about Lilly, please visit us at www.lilly.com and http://newsroom.lilly.com/social-channels.

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