Wisconsin Health Literacy Summit - A National Destination!

Submitted by Barb Ruggeri, Carroll University.

As part of a group of poster presenters from Carroll University, I traveled to Madison’s Monona Terrance for the 2019 Wisconsin Health Literacy Summit in early April. The theme “A Sharper View through the Lens of Health Literacy,” drew presenters and participants from around the country. We learned a great deal from very interesting presentations. I learned about research to improve communication about drug administration for patient families, a digital literacy assessment program, using patient safety incidents to tell the importance of clear communication and effective and inclusive consumer testing of health resources. The keynote speaker, Dr. Dean Schillinger from University of California and San Francisco General Hospital had a great presentation on the power of community voice for enhancing public health literacy for vulnerable populations. For me, the most powerful session was a breakout presentation from community voice Aaron Perry, who opened the nation’s first Men’s Health & Education Center located inside the City of Madison’s largest Black Barbershop; an amazing person who has worked on his own health challenges and helped so many black men in Madison take care of their health. I met some old friends and made new connections. I ran into our new WHSLA member, Xou Le Va Vang!

My Carroll University colleagues and I were pleased by the comments made by visitors at our poster presentation. We described our yearlong education of physician assistant students about health literacy. We used a learn-do-teach model within the interprofessionalism grant project. Our findings demonstrated increased understanding of health literacy knowledge by the physician assistant students after completion of each module, culminating in teaching the principles of health literacy to physical therapy and occupational therapy students.