Award ceremony will be held on May 10 in Irvine, Calif.

LA HABRA, Calif., April 30, 2012 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- The Institute for Healthcare Advancement (IHA) will present three awards on Thursday, May 10, for outstanding achievements in health literacy. The awards will be presented at its Eleventh Annual Health Literacy Conference, "Operational Solutions to Low Health Literacy," May 9-11 at the Hyatt Regency in Irvine, Calif. The conference will be attended by over 300 professionals working in healthcare, health educators, and individuals with an interest in literacy challenges as they relate to healthcare.

IHA, a non-profit healthcare organization and a leader in the health literacy field, received more than 80 nominations from the nation's foremost health literacy authorities and researchers. Winners were selected in the categories of Research, Innovative Programs, and Published Materials. 

The winners of the three 2012 IHA Health Literacy Awards are:

Research

SIPSmartER:  A nutrition literacy approach to reducing sugar-sweetened beverages
Jamie Zoellner, Ph.D., RD, Assistant Professor, Department of Human Nutrition, Foods and Exercise, Virginia Tech

Sugar-sweetened beverages, such as soda, fruit juice, sports drinks, and sweetened teas, contain added sugar.   Consumption of sugar-sweetened beverages has been linked to increased risk for diabetes, obesity, cardiovascular disease and cavities. Even with the mounting research linking sugar-sweetened beverages to poorer health, the average individual's intake of these beverages doubled from 1977 to 2002. Currently, sugar-sweetened beverages make up 10% of the total caloric intake of adults. The SIPSmartER research program developed by the Department of Human Nutrition, Foods and Exercise at Virginia Tech, is a unique project targeted towards educating low health literate individuals within rural southwest Virginia about sugar-sweetened beverage consumption. The SIPSmartER program strives to create lasting health behavior change by providing participants with easy to understand instruction on the impact of sugar-sweetened beverages on health, information on how to read beverage nutritional labels, as well as how to decipher nutrition-related media. Health literacy concepts have been integrated into every aspect of the study, from development of the intervention to its implementation. The SIPSmartER program is a long-term community-based study on the reduction of consumption of sugar-sweetened beverages. Due to Americans' increasing consumption of sugar-sweetened beverages and the adverse health consequences of consuming these beverages, increasing our understanding of how to properly communicate this risk to reduce individual's sugar-sweetened beverage consumption has widespread public health implications.

Innovative Programs

Health Literacy e-Learning Course
Sara Voit, Director of Learning; Jill Cobrin, President and CEO, Affiliates Risk Management Services, Inc. and its Center for Affiliated Learning

Affiliates Risk Management Services (ARMS), Inc., provides risk and quality management services to organizations with the aim of reducing risk and improving overall health outcomes.  To improve health literacy ARMS provides steps on how healthcare providers could better prepare and react to the challenges of health literacy through an online education course.  The course is targeted to patient-centric professionals, such as front-line healthcare staff, clinical and non-clinical health professionals, support staff and more.  The design of the course presents valuable scenarios illustrating the correlation between communication of the condition by the healthcare provider and ability of the patient to successfully understand and support long-term care.  The course contains four separate videos, each targeting a risk-factor of health literacy: health center distractions, use of medical terminology, speaking to young clients, and communicating over the phone. In each video the learner is first presented with a realistic, although unsuccessful interaction between a health professional and patient, and then is shown how the situation could be handled differently with greater opportunity for understanding and successful treatment of the patient. "This course allows healthcare professionals to see themselves as a vital component of the health literacy process—it's this type of self-awareness that will help lead to more comprehensive and successful care," stated Sara Voit, Director of Learning, ARMS, Inc.

"We are thrilled to have been selected for this award," stated Jill Cobrin, President & CEO, ARMS, Inc.  "Health literacy is vital to the delivery of effective and quality healthcare.  Knowledgeable patients are better able to make more informed decisions regarding their healthcare, thus achieving better outcomes.  As a risk management service organization, ARMS views health literacy as a vital component to the healthcare industry.   As a result, ARMS created this Health Literacy e-learning course in order to teach and review, as well as to enhance clinicians' awareness and comprehension regarding health literacy."

Published Materials

Feel Your Best: Patient Education Brochures
Lori Hall, RN, Health Education Consultant, Lilly USA, LLC        

Available in English and Spanish, the "Feel Your Best" patient brochure series by Lilly USA, LLC, provides patients with easy to read, easy to understand information about "Eating to Feel Your Best" and "Being Active to Feel Your Best."  Brochures were designed for people of all of ages, races and educational levels.  Using colorful pictures, direct information, simple illustrations, short bullets, quick tips and space for personalized notes, readers are inspired, directed and motivated to take action to feel their best.  Lilly's Health Education department is dedicated to empowering patient care through delivering a broad portfolio of non-product-branded health resources. "By providing the foundational knowledge and skills that create an informed patient, our resources are designed to engage, educate, and empower participants to be active in the management of their health care." said Lori Hall, RN, Health Education Consultant, Lilly USA, LLC.  "Like many healthcare organizations, we have been on a journey to learn as much as we can about health literacy and it became time to translate that knowledge into practice. So we put a lot of thought and consideration into how we could develop a very 'patient-centric' series of brochures that fully embrace the use of health literacy principles, yet were still engaging and visually appealing. By starting with the building blocks of good health--eating well and being active--and writing in plain, 'living room' language, the hope is these brochures will help to reduce health disparities and start to improve health communication between patients, providers and payers."  

Low health literacy is a widespread problem.  Research shows that only 12% of American adults possess the ability or health literacy to understand and use our healthcare system effectively.  That's about 1 in 10 adults. Health literacy is defined as the ability to read, understand, and act on health information to make appropriate decisions.  These decisions include understanding how to take your medicine, prepare for a medical test, sign up for health insurance, and care for yourself or a loved one's chronic illness.

IHA is a La Habra, California-based not-for-profit organization dedicated to empowering people to better health. It is nationally recognized for its efforts in health literacy and provides healthcare information through its various publishing efforts, the Internet, and its renowned local and national education programs.   For more information regarding the IHA Health Literacy Conference, the Rewrite/Redesign Service for those in healthcare or easy to read low literacy book series, please contact Michael Villaire, Chief Operating Officer, at 1-800-434-4633 ext. 202, email him at mvillaire@iha4health.org, or visit www.iha4health.org.

SOURCE Institute for Healthcare Advancement (IHA)