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Volume 71, Issue 106,
Thursday, March 9, 2006
News School offers healthy choice School of Communication plans health degree concentration for fall by LORINDA ROBB
A new degree concentration in the School of Communication will be available in Fall 2006 to students interested in working to combat poor health literacy rates and high levels of long-term illnesses. The undergraduate health communication program is designed to help students "acquire knowledge and skills essential to becoming more effective health-care consumers and advocates," as well as to teach the basics of "health campaign planning, implementation and evaluation," according to the course catalogue description. The concentration will include topics including e-health, health literacy and communication and catastrophic conditions. A bachelor's degree in communication with a concentration in health communication will prepare students for a wide range of jobs such as patient liaisons, nonprofit public relations and governmental health department positions, Jim Query, associate professor in the School of Communication, said. The program also prepares students to enter master's programs, he said. Graduate College of Social Work professor Andrew Achenbaum said the new program brings more opportunities such as research participation and internships to undergraduate students. The nation's aging population, a burgeoning of long-term illnesses such as HIV and diabetes and decreasing health-care literacy may make the time right for the first health communication undergraduate program, Query said. "The general education system has done an abysmal job at educating students in health literacy," he said. "We're seeing the results of health illiteracy in new cases of diabetes and obesity," Query said. School of Communication associate professor Martha Haun said health consumers lack reading skills. "We know from new studies that many can read only at the eighth-grade level," Haun said. Query said there are two dimensions to the curriculum. "The first is health care delivery, and the second is health care promotion," he said. One of the projects affiliated with the new communication program is the creation on CD or DVD of several soap opera-type stories about pressing health issues such as self-care and communicating with health care professionals. Query said the idea comes from the "telenovela" concept used in South American and African countries. The CD/DVD is intended as a type of outreach educational tool for people living in rural areas. Query said funding for the program is being sought through grants from institutions such as the Alzheimer's Association. "We're serious about helping people become better health care consumers and health care advocates," Query said. "That's dear to us." The health communication program will help build bridges between the University's academic disciplines, Achenbaum said. The new medicine and society minor offered through The Honors College is another example of "the sort of interdisciplinary synergy that you'd expect on a campus like this," Achenbaum said. Send comments to dcnews@mail.uh.edu |
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