UGA gets $1M for health literacy
November 30, 2009 by DHARA PATEL
Filed under News
Two University researchers received nearly $1 million in stimulus monies to fund a two-year project helping the elderly interact with their doctors.
Researchers Vicki Freimuth and Don Rubin will use the $970,039 – provided through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act – to train Meals on Wheels volunteers as health literacy educators for the elderly.
Meals on Wheels is a non-profit organization that provides food to elderly men and women who are home-bound or disabled.
“The older you are, the more likely you are to have a low health literacy score,” said Mumbi Okundaye, a graduate researcher working on the project.
Rubin, professor emeritus of speech communication and a researcher in the University’s Center for Health & Risk Communication, said the Meals on Wheels workers will train home-bound older adults to better communicate with their health care providers.
“They will instruct older adults using the ‘Ask-Me-3′ program, which is approved by [the] American Medical Association,” Rubin said.
The “Ask-Me-3″ program uses three questions – “What is my main problem?,” “What do I need to do?” and “Why is it important for me to do this?” – to help adults approach a doctor or medical situation with more confidence and ease.
“Staff will find out when clients are about to have appointments and let them practice asking the three questions as well as motivate them to use the ‘Ask-Me-3′ questions before they actually go to an appointment with the health care provider,” Rubin said.
Freimuth and Rubin hope to use their experiment as an example for other communities across the nation.
“If Georgia is successful in its efforts, the rest of the country can follow,” said Freimuth, director of the Center for Health & Risk Communication. “We are hoping for the program to be picked up by three million Meals on Wheels clients. To do so, we plan to use our project to figure out how to adapt to disseminate on a national level.”
The results of the project will be used to address the issue of health illiteracy in the elderly. The study encounters in urban areas – such as Cobb, DeKalb and Fulton counties – and rural areas – including Seminole, Early, Mitchell and Grady counties.
Debra Furtado, a University alumna and CEO of Senior Connections, will be coordinating the work that will take place in DeKalb County.
“This type of work is critical and imperative. Many of the people that receive meals through Meals on Wheels are isolated and in some cases, this may be the only meal they are receiving that day,” Furtado said. “That volunteer or staff member delivering the meal may be the only person they are seeing all day. We all need the human contact and that is something that you cannot put a dollar amount on. Having someone spend an extra five minutes, even if they are just explaining how to ask questions to a doctor, will be invaluable.”
