2001 Pilot Project Awards
Consumer Health Information Outreach for Minority Organizations
The primary purpose of these outreach projects is to design local programs for improving information access for health consumers (general public). Emphasis is on providing information or access to health and medical information in a way meaningful to the target community.
Awards were made for the following projects:
- Hmong Health Information Promotion:
Wausau, Wisconsin, and Beyond, Northern Wisconsin
Area Health Education Center, Inc., (Wausau, WI)
The Hmong Health Information Promotion (Hmong HIP) project will focus on the health information needs of the Hmong population in Wisconsin, beginning with a focused effort in the Wausau area and expanding to include other Wisconsin communities serving the Hmong. This project will provide information resources in several formats, including women's health conferences, health information videos, and bilingual electronic documents suitable for reproduction. They will also develop a health information literacy program for the Wausau area Hmong population, working with the public library and community service agencies to train Hmong youth and bilingual health workers to work as coaches with their families and others in the community. They will offer train-the-trainer education for local librarians and health educators, focused on the technical and cultural skills required to work with this population. The HmongHealth website will be designed to provide access to resources, as well as training materials and conference information. Local partners include: Community Health Care/Wausau Hospital; the Marathon County Public Library; the Marathon County Health Department; the Marshfield Clinic; the Neighbor's Place; UW Family Medicine Clinics and Health Sciences programs; the Wausau Area Hmong Mutual Assistance Association; and the Wisconsin Children's Service Society Northern Region/Hmong Mental Health Institute.
Women's Health Network for Minority Consumer Health Outreach: Where Knowledge Empowers People: A collaboration for community based education for minority populations Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond, VA
The goal of the Women's Health Network for Minority Consumer Health Education (WHN) is to educate minority women in the Richmond Community about their health needs and those of their children. WHN provides culturally relevant women's health educational material to minority women throughout the community. Initially, WHN information will be made available to health care consumers through the Richmond Coalition of Safety Net Providers Network and the Virginia Hispanic Chamber of Commerce. In the second year of the project, WHN will outreach to the broader Richmond community. WHN will address the health education needs of minority women and children through a wide variety of educational strategies. The WHN includes training on the accession of electronic health information and related skills development, collecting culturally and language specific Web-based educational materials, accessing health and medical information. This training will be provided primarily in the community-based settings in collaboration with the Tompkins-McCaw Library (the Health Sciences Library at Virginia Commonwealth University) and the Community Health Resource Center (CHRC). WHN is a collaboration of the Richmond Coalition of Safety Net Providers, made up of VCUHS, Cross Over Health Center, the Fan Free Clinic, the North District Health Center, and the Vernon J. Harris Community Health Center as well as the Virginia Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, the VCU Libraries, the Institute for Women's Health.
Consumer Health Information Outreach for Minority Organizations: Internet Access and Training for African American Churches Edward G. Miner Library, University of Rochester Medical Center, Rochester, NY
The Congregation Healthy Heart Action Partnership (CHHAP) will collaborate with the Edward G. Miner Library and the Rochester Public Library to provide Internet access and training to selected member churches of the CHHAP, a coalition of 37 African-American churches and sever community centers in inner city Rochester. The goal of this project is to improve access to health knowledge, especially heart health knowledge of church members by: 1) providing computer equipment and Internet access to selected churches, (2) training all participants to use computers, the World Wide Web, and health Web sites such as MedlinePlus, healthfinder, and NOAH: and 3) increasing participants' awareness of health resources in Rochester's public libraries and increasing interactions between librarians and participants. An earlier survey confirmed that up-to-date and functioning computers were at a premium, and that none of the congregations had in-church Internet access. For this project churches will apply to the CHHAP to participate, and the entire coalition will determine and select the final seven sites. Besides Memorial AME Zion (which has already received equipment through the pilot project but will need support for Internet access), five additional churches will receive computer equipment, Internet access, technical support, and reference assistance. Miner Librarians will train the churches' lay health advisors and will provide training sessions for up to 10 additional members of each church. Each trainee, in turn, will train and mentor 3-4 other church members. The librarians will provide ongoing assistance by phone, e-mail, visits, or church meetings.
Accessing Online Information for Immigrant and Refugee Health Harborview Medical Center, Seattle, WA
This project will build upon the community partnerships that have been established through the Community House Calls and EthnoMed programs with seven refugee and immigrant communities: Amharic-speaking Ethiopian, Oromo, Somali, Tigream, Vietnamese, Cambodian and Latino. Community House Calls (CHC), is a working model of cross-cultural health care in both clinic and community settings. CHC is the home of a Web-based file called EthnoMed that is designed to provide health and cultural information via the Web with the goal of improving communication between refugee and immigrant groups and their health care providers. Community House Calls, EthnoMed, the City of Seattle Department of Information Technology, and members of the target communities will work together to increase the availability and accessibility of online health information. Two people from each target group will complete a curriculum that teaches them how to use the Web as a resource for health information and how to teach others to do the same. The project will produce online educational materials about cancer, diabetes and tuberculosis in the languages spoken by the target communities, and add new community information to the cultural and medical profiles on EthnoMed. Training program web site - http://depts.washington.edu/ethnomed/HMCproject/HMCtrainer.html