Prevention Education Resource Center

The Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality and AARP have released two new checklists and an accompanying wall chart designed to help men and women over the age of 50 learn what they can do to stay healthy and prevent disease. Men: Stay Healthy at 50+, Checklists for Your Health; Women: Stay Healthy at 50+, Checklists for Health and the Staying Heatlhy at 50+ timeline show at a glance the evidence-based recommendations from the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force regarding screening tests, preventive medicines and healthy lifestyle behaviors for people 50 and older.

Checklists for Health, available in English and Spanish, are brochures that adults can take along to medical appointments and are designed to help patients and clinicians engage in discussions about necessary preventive screening tests. The Staying Healthy at 50+ timeline displays the Task Force's recommendations for preventive care for men and women age 50 and older in a wall chart, and is designed to be posted in places such as clinicians' offices, senior centers, fitness centers, pharmacies and other public locations.

Men: Stay Healthy at 50+, Checklists for Your Health and Women: Stay Healthy at 50+, Checklists for Health are available on the AHRQ Web site at http://www.ahrq.gov/ppip/men50.htm and http://www.ahrq.gov/ppip/women50.htm. The Staying Healthy at 50+ timeline is also available on the AHRQ Web site at http://www.ahrq.gov/ppip/50plusposter.htm. The publications may be ordered by calling AHRQ's Publications Clearinghouse at 1-800-358-9295 or sending an email to ahrqpubs@ahrq.hhs.gov

The Task Force is the leading independent panel of experts in prevention and primary care. The Task Force, which is supported by AHRQ, conducts rigorous, impartial assessments of the scientific evidence for the effectiveness of a broad range of clinical preventive services, including screening, counseling and preventive medications. Its recommendations are considered the gold standard for clinical preventive services. AARP is a nonprofit, nonpartisan membership organization that helps people 50+ have independence, choice and control in ways that are beneficial and affordable to them and society as a whole.

In the six years since the Core Competencies for Public Health Professionals (Core Competencies) were adopted, the field of public health has seen major changes, from the events of September 11, 2001 to new technologies, and an aging workforce. Beginning in September 2008, the Council on Linkages Between Academia and Public Health Practice (the Council) undertook a project to refine and update the Core Competencies, based on recommendations from Council members, as well as the public.

The new draft includes changes in both content and phrasing and aims to address issues raised by in the 7 years since the Core Competencies were first released.

2008 Institute for Interprofessional Prevention Education

Call for Applications from Participant Observers

Deadline Extended until June 16th

The 2008 Institute for Interprofessional Prevention Education is an excellent opportunity to promote innovative change in healthcare education and acquire knowledge, resources, and strategies that will help introduce or expand interprofessional prevention initiatives on campuses and in communities. The Institute will take place September 4-5 in Washington D.C. Please see the Call for Applications on our website at http://www.aptrweb.org/prof_dev/institute08.html, which provides a description of the Institute and outlines the application procedure. An agenda for the meeting and biographical profiles of faculty presenters can also be found on the APTR website.

The primary goal of the Institute is to address high-priority health problems by advancing interprofessional training and increasing the emphasis on prevention in health professions education programs. The plenary sessions will address ways to create an academic environment conducive to advancing Interprofessional Prevention Education (IPE), clinical effectiveness, and evaluation strategies for identifying and measuring outcomes.

Other goals of the Institute are:

Please act quickly. This call is being widely distributed and APTR will select up to 10 individuals to attend the meeting as participant observers who will be able to participate fully in all Institute events. Questions about this event may be directed to Donna Page, MPH, APTR Manager of Special Projects at 540-380-5883 or dpage@aptrweb.org.

healthfinder.gov has been redesigned to give consumers even more news, tips, and tools to stay healthy!

The site features these new and easy-to-use features:

Give your feedback on the new site while it is in beta. Visit http://beta.healthfinder.gov and click on the feedback icon!

healthfinder.gov is a consumer health information Web site sponsored by the Office of Disease Prevention and Health Promotion (ODPHP), U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

HRSA Unveils Free Online Health Literacy Training for Health Professionals

Health professionals in the United States and around the world are improving their patient communication skills with a new online tutorial. The course, developed by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA), is called Unified Health Communication 101: Addressing Health Literacy, Cultural Competency, and Limited English Proficiency. Recently, the course was selected for an award from the National Association of Government Communicators.

The course was designed to help healthcare providers increase their knowledge of factors that affect communication with patients and to learn about their patients’ health literacy, culture, and language skills, and how each can influence a patient’s ability to communicate about health-related issues.

The course takes a holistic approach by bringing together health literacy, cultural competency, and language skills as they relate to English proficiency.

Health literacy is the degree to which individuals can obtain and understand basic health information needed to make appropriate health decisions.

Cultural competency reflects a provider’s knowledge of the health-related beliefs, attitudes, practices, and communication patterns of clients and their families to improve health outcomes.

Language skills address the degree of proficiency a patient has to read, write, speak, or understand English.

The program contains five modules that each take about one hour to complete. Module 1 provides an introduction to health communication. Other units address health literacy, cultural competency, and limited English proficiency. The final module is an exercise designed for participants to test their ability to interact effectively with patients.

The course is free and can be done at a user’s own pace. To date, continuing education credit for this course has been approved by the following:

§American Academy of Physician Assistants

§American Association for Health Education

§American Pharmacists Association

§National Committee for Quality Assurance

Since the website went live in November 2007, people from more than 10 countries have signed up for the course. HRSA reports that as of mid-March, over 1,500 people have registered for the course. More information, including registration instructions, is available at www.hrsa.gov/healthliteracy/training.htm. For additional information, contact Linda Johnston-Lloyd of the HRSA Center for Quality at Ljohnston-lloyd@hrsa.gov.

Clinical Prevention and Population Health Curriculum Framework

The Healthy People Curriculum Task Force, convened by APTR, is currently revising the Clinical Prevention and Population Health Curriculum Framework. To ensure broad stakeholder input in the revision process, we invite you and your colleagues to thoughtfully review the current Framework and provide feedback via a web-based form. This Framework represents the first structured and comprehensive curriculum agenda for integrating clinical prevention and population health into the education of students in all health professions disciplines. The mission of the Task Force is to accomplish the Healthy People 2010 goal of increasing the teaching of health promotion and disease prevention in health professions education programs.

The Framework provides common, core subject matter and increases the opportunity for an interprofessional team approach to education and training. The Framework consists of four components:

The full Curriculum Framework includes a total of 19 domains under the four components. Examples are provided of learning and teaching materials related to each domain.

The Task Force includes representatives from: American Association of Colleges of Nursing, American Association of Colleges of Osteopathic Medicine, American Association of Colleges of Pharmacy, American Dental Education Association, Association of American Medical Colleges, National Organization of Nurse Practitioner Faculties, Physician Assistant Education Association, and (new in 2008) the Association of Schools of Allied Health Professions. The Association of Schools of Public Health and Community-Campus Partnerships for Health serve as resource organizations.

The Healthy People Curriculum Task Force web site contains the Framework as well as articles that appeared in the December 2004 issue of the American Journal of Preventive Medicine including a commentary by the U.S. Surgeon General.

Please provide your editing suggestions for improving and strengthening the four components and 19 domains of the Clinical Prevention and Population Health Curriculum Framework. Feedback will be used to inform the revision process which will culminate in approval of a revised Curriculum Framework in late 2008.

Your response is requested before May 15, 2008.

To review the Framework please click here.

New syllabi posted for undergraduate education in public health and epidemiology!

Through the Innovations in Public Health Education (IPHE) Project, the Association for Prevention Teaching and Research (APTR) awarded funds to 12 MPH Programs to develop and offer a total of 15 undergraduate courses in epidemiology and public health in the fall of 2006. The project is supported through a Cooperative Agreement with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Grantees are members of the APTR Council of Graduate Programs in Public Health.

Many of the syllabi that were developed through the project are now available on PERC at: www.teachprevention.org

The purpose of the initiative is to encourage the design, teaching and evaluation of undergraduate public health and epidemiology courses and to facilitate an exchange by faculty engaged in undergraduate public health teaching.

This project builds on the Institute of Medicine (IOM) reports, The Future of the Public’s Health in the 21^st Century and Who Will Keep the Public Healthy? Educating Public Health Professionals for the 21^st Century,that recommend that introductory public health and epidemiology courses be developed and taught in institutions both with and without programs and schools of public health. It is hoped that these courses will eventually fulfill social science and science distribution requirements as part of general education at a wide variety of undergraduate institutions.

Innovations in Public Health Awardees:

Arcadia University - Andrea Crivelli-Kovach, Ph.D., MA,

Brown University - William Rakowski, Ph.D.

East Carolina University - Suzanne T. Orr, Ph.D.

Florida International University - Nasar U. Ahmed, PhD

Georgia State University - Karen Gieseker, Ph.D., MS

Medical College of Georgia - Genny T. Carrillo, MD, MPH, MSPH, ScD

Mercer University School of Medicine - William F. Bina, III, MD, MPH

New York University - Sally Guttmacher, PhD

University of Kansas Medical Center - Won S. Choi, PhD, MPH

University of Connecticut - David Gregorio, MD

University of Pennsylvania – David Barnes, MD

University of Southern California Keck School of Medicine - Elahe Nezami, Ph.D

University of Virginia - Ruth Gaare Bernheim, JD, MPH