Laurie Schott <lschott2@gmail.com> Apr 28 01:54PM -0400 ^
Does anyone have any information on using CHES as patient educators vs.
nurses? My supervisor is limiting my involvement with patients due to my
non clinical background.

–
Laurie Schott, MPH, CPH, CHES

——————————————

shana <shanap1@comcast.net> Apr 28 06:15PM ^
I too am extremely interested in information using CHES as patient educators and Disease Management educators. I have been in the field for 16 years and find it difficult to obtain job promotions and salary increases when RN’s with less patient to patient preventative health work experience have more opportunity for growth.

shana pack-gangluff, ms, mches
nationwide better health, sr lifestyle health coach
904.614.4087
shanap1@comcast.net

—————————————-

> I too am extremely interested in information using CHES as patient

> educators and Disease Management educators.

Ah, the age old debate of license verses certification.  License almost always wins.  Specialized Education credentials -which are typically knowledge and skill based– also help (i.e. Diabetes Educator, Asthma Educator, Certified Lactation consultant, child birth

educator).   I am dubious that CHES, a generalist, knowledge-only

credential that is mostly community-focused adds much to the patient education conversation at all. The fact that we are two decades into CHES and still have not figured out how to leverage it with any consistency makes one wonder about its inherent value.

The reality is Health educators are not clinically trained.  Indeed, I have an MPH but if you looked at the sciences underlying my degree you would shake your head. I did come across a link to an article that came ouT a couple of years ago that might be useful :A Preliminary Study of the Work of Health Educators in a Clinical Setting”

http://bit.ly/lasPTI

–

Mark Fulop, MA, MPH

Facilitation & Process, LLC

“Productive meetings. Smart strategies. Lasting Impact PO Box 18144 Portland, OR 97218-0144

(503) 928-4082

——————————————-

Laurie Schott <lschott2@gmail.com> Apr 28 02:56PM -0400 ^

Is it true CHES can sit for CDE now?

I understand that I am not clinically trained however, I wonder if a brand new nurse wouldn’t have to do just as much on-the-job training for our spine center surgical patients to be able to communicate patient expectations of the hospital experience.   I can learn about the surgeries just as easily and understand what is important to convey to the patients over time.

More interesting to me is the question of liability.  I have been told that it may be a liability issue for me to provide pt. education vs. a nurse.  Comments?

Laurie

—————————————–

Julie Lager <lagerj@hotmail.com> Apr 28 07:13PM ^
I do not have any specific information regarding CHES and patient education but I can share my experience regarding the role my health educators have in our organization regarding patient education/self management education. I have very strong feelings on this topic as I feel health educators’s skills are extremely well suited to this activity. The information below may be way more than you need or want to know….

As a Federally Qualified Community Health Center in central Texas our health educators role in patient education was established with our participation the Health Disparties Collaboratives that HRSA is/was doing with FQHCs. I have two health educators who are responsible for patient self management education. In sessions with clients, my health educators use the 5 A’s and motivational interviewing to assess the clients knowledge and current behavior, provide education, and assess readiness for change. Collaboratively with the patient the health educators select a small manageable goal and develop an action plan. Barriers are also identified and a plan is developed for overcoming the barriers. Finally, they assess the patient’s confidence in doing the action plan and what support is available to carry out the plan.

So what clinical knowledge do my staff have? I train them with basic knowledge on diabetes/cardiovascular disease as a disease, diabetes/cardiovasculr disease management, basic nutrition principles, etc. They also participate in webinars/trainings to further their knowledge. I will admit that they do not have the depth of clinical knowledge as a registered nurse. However, many of our patients due to literacy level are not ready for that depth of knowledge. As health educators, I think we are better suited to assisting the patient in achieving small changes. These small changes over time increase the patients confidence in achieving bigger behavior change steps.

I would consider encouraging your supervisor to sit in on your patient education sessions with you so that he/she can assess your knowledge/skill level to determine whether it is adquate. This then provides an opportunity for staff development if she/he determines any deficits. I let my staff know that it is okay to tell a patient that you do not know the answer, but that they will get back to the patient with the answer. I also tell my staff to encourage the patient to ask the provider about a topic if my health educator does not know the answer.

I am not sure what type of patient education you are doing or the depth of the education. I would agree that there is a time and a place that a nurse is required to do the education. However, I think health educators can ease the burden of nursing staff by taking on a larger patient education role.

Julie Ribardo, PhD
Director of Health Education & Prevention
Brazos Valley Community Health Centers

————————

Julie Lager <lagerj@hotmail.com> Apr 28 07:18PM ^
The last I knew health educators were removed from the ‘acceptable’ degrees to apply for CDE.

I would agree about the on the job training. I am not sure about the liability. I think liability would still be a problem if they had a medical assistant or a certified nurses aide doing this. Some of these individuals do not have a college degree. If they are concerned about liability then an LVN or RN would have to do it. Again, I am not sure what liability they are concerned about…..

Julie Ribardo, PhD

———————

Ranjita Misra <misra@hlkn.tamu.edu> Apr 28 07:20PM ^
Hi,

ADA used to include Health Educators to apply. But that has been revised since 2005 and they do not qualify to apply for CDE certification.

Thanks,

Ranjita Misra, PhD, CHES, FMALRC
Professor & Research Director
Center for the Study of Health Disparities (CSHD)
Member, Intercollegiate Faculty of Nutrition
Department of Health and Kinesiology
158V Read Building, 4243 TAMU
Texas A&M University
College Station, TX 77843
979-845-8726; 979-847-8987 (Fax)

——————

Julie Lager <lagerj@hotmail.com> Apr 28 07:28PM ^
Good point here regarding training of health educators. Perhaps including sciences (or more sciences) in their training would better prepare them for working in health care not just public health. I am not sure health educators would have to be clinically trained but understanding human physiology or disease process would be helpful. Sometimes this can be learned on the job. My bachelors is in biology which I think was a great foundation for preparing me for the work I am currently doing.

Julie Ribardo, PhD

——————

Dean Kniss <knissdd@sfasu.edu> Apr 28 02:28PM -0500 ^
One profession that you might look to as an example is that of exercise physiologists in cardiac rehabilitation. They are degreed specialists (like health educators) with a certification available (like CHES) and they facilitate an exercise prescription program that (in my opinion) would put the institution in as much or more precarious position for liability than a “wellness prescription” that a health educator might facilitate.
DK

D. Dean Kniss, Ph.D., CHES
Assistant Professor
Graduate Program Coordinator
Stephen F. Austin State University
Kinesiology and Health Science

————–

“Watson, Tyler” <watsont@byui.edu> Apr 28 01:33PM -0600 ^
I believe the “liability” argument is a red herring. It is a way to block those who are not licensed from intruding.

The last time I looked at the CDE website, our profession was not on the list of those eligible to become certified. When I graduated that was not the case, it was just difficult for a health educator to get the clinical time because of “liability” issues.

A health educator could be sued by a client just as a nurse could. There is nothing in the license of a nurse that protects them or their employer from liability. In fact you can even get malpractice insurance as a health educator. (I believe some universities require it of their students prior to their internship… others would have to comment). You can find information about liability here… http://www.hpso.com/professional-liability-insurance/professions-covered.jsp This company insures health education as a “fitness professional”, but 1,000,000 coverage is $70/year.

In our core competencies AND our code of ethics there is nothing that would limit our practice to community based interventions.

Again, in order to get state registration or licensure a person has to take a required and accredited school curriculum and pass a test. Health educators just decided to take the voluntary route of certification instead of the mandatory licensure route for the profession.

This is why I think that we need to press for universal licensure and use CHES as the qualifying examination for state registration or licensing.

OK… Off my soap box.

Our credentialing examination for CHES indicates that we are qualified to assess health problems (both individual and community), plan effective programs (which can be personalized) and implement them using proven behavioral approaches.

Yet, many licensed supervisors still claim that they (or the organization) are at greater risk for liability if someone other than a licensed professional speaks to a “patient”. Seems like a person limits their ability to effectively lead a team and work effectively when they do not use all of the resources available to them. (I am sure your supervisor has no interest in my opinion though).

You could look up any number of articles in Health Promotion Practice or Health Education and Behavior (using a database is more effective) and see successful interventions completed by health educators dealing with “patients”.

A patient education program to improve adherence rates with antituberculosis drug regimens<http://heb.sagepub.com/content/17/3/253.short>
DE Morisky, CK Malotte, P Choi… – Health Education & …, 1990 – heb.sagepub.com

Four psychosocial theories and their application to patient education and clinical practice<http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/art.1790030305/abstract>
VM Gonzalez, J Goeppinger… – Arthritis & Rheumatism, 1990 – Wiley Online Library

Tyler Watson
——————————————

Margaret Sullivan <mrsullivan@siu.edu> Apr 28 02:47PM -0500 ^
As one who has spent a career in nursing, and am now in my terminal degree
program, I am very interested in this conversation. I was like many and did
not know much about health education and so of course patient teaching had
to be done by a nurse, and that nurse had best be an RN because an LPN
didn’t have enough training to teach.

Having broadened my perspective with more education I can see the benefit of
Health Educators being part of the team. Each member does have a specific
function, however there are times when the lines between those functions
certainly blur. My training as a nurse educator was “find out what he needs
to know, get in there and tell him, and get out.” That certainly didn’t
elicit the desired response from the patient. As someone else said so
eloquently – health educators are the ones best prepared to assist the
client to make a plan (their own) that they can stick with.

If anyone out there wants to work on making inroads into the health setting
to do direct patient care I would be interested in helping with this. I have
been on both sides and there is room for all – especially with the looming
nurse shortage again.

Peggy
______________________________________

Margaret R. Sullivan, MPH, RN, CHES
Graduate Teaching Assistant
Pulliam Hall 108
Southern Illinois University
Carbondale, Illinois 62901
Telephone: 618-453-5185 -Off
309-453-2648 -Cell
E-mail: mrsullivan@siu.edu

————————————————————

b.j.smithconsultant@gmail.com Apr 28 07:50PM ^
Ranjita is correct about the deletion of health educators from the list of health professionals eligible to sit for the Certified Diabetes Educator examination.
I think we must be careful to say they have been made ineligible – not that they are not qualified – because when you examine the list of other health professionals who are eligible you will note that health educators are amongst the most qualified in terms of knowledge and skills.
All of the health education professional associations and NCHEC protested this decision on eligibility for two years but they did not “carry the day”. In my opinion, this discrimination against health educators may be because they were seen as “competitors” by the leadership of the Diabetes Educators.
The areas of responsibility, competencies and sub-competencies of Certified Health Education Specialists clearly define a skill set that demonstrates the ability of health educators to function effectively as patient educators. Those should be the data referenced when talking to employers about the qualification of health educators to function in the realm of patient education- although it should also be appropriately supported by adequate knowledge in medical terminology.
Best wishes
Becky Smith, PhD, CHES
——————————————————-

Angela Stangarone <a_stangarone@hotmail.com> Apr 28 03:55PM -0400 ^
I’m excited we’re discussing “my” issue!!! I work in a city hospital and find the roles are extremely rigid. My first year was tough when I got stomped on by staff in a clinic I coordinated. It turned out that the OT’s and PT’s especially were excellent educators (in my opinion) so I supported them. But, I wonder how much longer staff, like patient coordinators, receptionists even administrators will be hired without any public health, medical or science background.

Angela Stangarone, MPH
————————————————————-

Julie Lager <lagerj@hotmail.com> Apr 28 07:57PM ^
Thank you Peggy. This is the dialogue we need, especially from someone who has spent time on both sides. The challenge is moving it forward….

Julie Ribardo, PhD

——————————————————————–

shana <shanap1@comcast.net> Apr 28 09:07PM ^
This is directly from the 2011 CDE brochure

DISCIPLINE: One must be 1) a clinical psychologist, registered nurse, occupational therapist, optometrist, pharmacist, physical therapist, physician (M.D. or D.O.) or podiatrist holding a current, active, unrestricted license from the United States or its territories; OR 2) a dietitian holding active registration with the Commission on Dietetic Registration, physician assistant holding active registration with the National Commission on Certification of Physician Assistants, exercise specialist holding active certification as an American College of Sports Medicine Certified Clinical Exercise Specialist, or exercise physiologist holding active registration as a clinical registered exercise physiologist with the American College of Sports Medicine; OR 3) a health care professional with a master’s degree or higher in social work from a
United States college or university accredited by a nationally recognized regional accrediting body.

shana pack-gangluff, ms, mches
nationwide better health, sr lifestyle health coach
904.614.4087
shanap1@comcast.net

————————————————————–

Mark Fulop <mark@facilitationprocess.com> Apr 28 03:41PM -0700 ^
Wow, This reminds me of HEDIR in the olden days, where great
information, spirited opinion and evolving thinking ruled. I am
learning a lot from your sharing. I wanted add that it seems like we
have three concurrent discussions going on.

1. The first conversation is the reality of having the right
certifications that open up opportunity and pay differential.
Specialized certifications can lock you out of a field as my spouse
with an RN license AND MPH is finding out. Despite the degrees and
experience of years, all lactation educator positions locally require
a certification that includes a continuing education, a test , and a
yr worth of supervised internship hours… Mere mortals with nursing
license and MPH need not apply : P

2. The second conversation elated is the politics connected to
certification. If NCHEC can’t even defend Health Educators as
qualified for Certified Diabetes Educator examination then it shows
the huge power differentials between organized and unorganized
disciplines.

3. The third conversation is about competencies. To be honest we
aren’t yet clear on articulating the worth of our competencies. Well
all of us except Dr. Ribardo who so eloquently reminded us that what
makes us qualified. What qualifies us is is NOT our knowledge of
science or disease or physiology but it is our understanding of health
behavior change, program design, cultural competency, health
disparities and inequities. We understand concepts like social
determinants and can help folks think in a socio-ecological framework.

So as we continue conversing,it will be useful to understand which
sandbox we are speaking from! Thanks for enlivening my professional
sense today.

–
Mark Fulop, MA, MPH

——————————————————————–

“Young, Kathleen J” <kathleen.young@csun.edu> Apr 28 05:26PM -0700 ^
So what must a health educator (with a CHES or with just the degree) do in order to sit for the Diabetes examination?

thanks very much, Kathleen

—————————————————————————–

b.j.smithconsultant@gmail.com Apr 29 12:57AM ^
Kathleen:
Because health educators are not eligible professionals to become a Diabetes Educator, s/he must first become an Exercise Specialist, Optometrist, Podiatrist, Physician’s Assistant, Registered Dietitian, MD, DO, RN, Social worker, Physical therapist, or Clinical psychologist – as they are all on the eligible professions list. The remaining requirements are at www.ncbde.org/eligibility

Becky Smith, PhD, CHES

————————————————————–

Carlos Carrio <ccarrio@csusb.edu> Apr 28 06:04PM -0700 ^
Becky, I think you summed it up very well!
Really makes you think what our profession is really “worth” and/or
perceived in the “real” world?

What can we do to edify it? Colleagues have told me not to bother getting
the CHES since it’s basically a rubber stamp!
Thanks,

Carlos Carrio, MPH
Health Educator/Wellness Coordinator
The Center for Health Education and Wellness
Student Health & Psychological Counseling Center
5500 University Parkway
San Bernardino, CA 92407
(909) 537-3655
ccarrio@csusb.edu

“Watson, Tyler” Feb 17 01:02PM -0700 ^
Hello my fellow compassionate service workers…

I have been thinking seriously the last few weeks about something and I would like your input.

Healthcare costs are continuing to climb and even with significant reforms I am not confident that the slope of the curve will flatten anytime soon. With the economic pressures being applied to the health system, many of the only solutions seem to be focused on capping costs (i.e. reducing benefits, capitation, more efficient service, expanded use of para-professionals in the clinical setting).

So I wonder… Is our profession poised for the future, or are we chasing the problems of yesterday?

We have a set of skills as outlined in the 7 core competencies and most of us feel like we are well positioned as competent content experts in prevention…
BUT-is that what the FUTURE health educator (or whatever the name may be) will need in their tool belt to address the needs of those seeking health care and those who are responsible for providing it?

I wonder, do we need to train our students in clinical assessment and standard of care procedures for some classifications of patients?
Do we need to have good background in both behavior theory AND hands on clinical management?

Would we be abandoning our professional staples and venturing into other scopes of practice? If so— Is that a good or bad thing?

I know I wish that I was able to bring more to the table in clinical assessment and management… and not hang on the fringes of the table hoping for scraps (what is not being provided in the doctors office)…

Love to hear what you have to say, and maybe even come up with some ideas to conduct a solid needs analysis that might lead us to fill a potential future gap in the health care system.

Tyler Watson, MPH, CHES
Health Science
Brigham Young University-Idaho
Rexburg, ID 83440

——————————–

Ranjita Misra Feb 17 08:31PM
Dear Tyler,

Good point. I want to direct your attention to a special issue of our Journal , the Health Education Monograph Series which will focus on “Emerging Career Paths for Health Educators”. Dr. Delores James from University of Florida is the Guest Editor for this special issue; Dr. Mohammad Torabi is the editor of the Monograph Series.

I have often brooded over the same points and have addressed it in a chapter on this upcoming special issue entitled “Health Educators of the21st century: A Member of the Transdiciplinary Team.” As a health disparities researcher, I often work with a multidisciplinary team. As members of a transdiciplinary team, health educators are well poised to deliver evidence-based practice as well as implementation of research translation in clinic, school and community settings. Most of our efforts on primary and secondary prevention fit into the T2 category of the translational research specified by the National Institute of Health and Institute of Medicine.

However, are our skills and competencies adequate and confer a competitive advantage for us in the transdiciplinary team? Is the CHES competencies and skills unique to our profession? In other words, is a health educator uniquely prepared than other health professionals (e.g., nursing, social work, psychology, health communication, criminal justice) that work in prevention intervention areas of public health? I have presented my stand on this in the manuscript.

Best regards,

Ranjita Misra

Ranjita Misra, PhD, CHES
Professor & Research Director
Center for the Study of Health Disparities (CSHD)
Department of Health and Kinesiology
Member, Intercollegiate Faculty of Nutrition
158V Read Building
Texas A&M University, College Station, TX 77843

President, Eta Sigma Gamma, National Health Science Honor Society
Past President, South Asian Public Health Association

——————-

Kristina Davis Feb 17 02:33PM -0600 ^
I think looking forward programs should train students in project management
capacities and help health educators learn to build interprofessional
networks with clinicians and others. The health educator of the future will
not be a stand alone entity (this will not survive especially with the
increased specialization of services) but one that can enmesh his or herself
to fill in the holes of other services providers. For example, partnering
with fire fighters to make sure that the preventive services they provide
(child safety, smoke detectors, gun safety, etc.) are delivered in plain
language and culturally appropriate manners or working with professional
organizations (AHA, AMA, APIC, ACPM etc.) on their programs delivered to
ensure they are delivered in a way to maximize education. Those are my
thoughts.
—————————–

Stephen Brown Feb 17 03:30PM -0600 ^
Tyler, interesting question. I was recently talking to a group of graduate
students about selecting research topics. We reviewed a couple of related
documents: The CDC report subtitled, *A Guide to Public Health Research
Needs* **(
http://www.cdc.gov/od/science/PHResearch/cdcra/AdvancingTheNationsHealth.pdf),
and the Institute of Medicine report subtitled, *Educating Public Health
Professionals for the 21st Century* (
http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=10542#toc). Both have similar
priorities and both put emphasis on human genomics, informatics, global
health, participatory research, social determinants of health, mass health
communication, health policy/law, and cultural relevance in a changing
society. Limited space was devoted to discussion of what we might consider
conventional health education practice. I believe the capability to
integrate into a clinical setting is implied, as is the need for larger
public health approaches. Although the core competencies obviously can
apply to these types of priorities, I also wonder whether our students are
getting enough specific training in these areas. And, even if we wanted to
give this training, could we fit it into the current number of credit
hours. I also personally wonder whether I have sufficient expertise to give
this training.

Following this discussion, one of the students in class chose to do her
paper on the role of health educators in the Medical Home Model, a clinical
care model favored by many health care reform advocates. She interviewed
physicians, nurses, and administrators at a very prominent Medical Home.
Two overarching findings were most interesting to me: 1) as a health
educator, she could identify many opportunities for health educators to play
an integral role in this model, and 2) the parties interviewed
underestimated both the capabilities of and the need for a trained health
educator.

Stephen
*
Stephen L Brown PhD*
Associate Professor–Public Health Education
Graduate Director–Department of Health Education and Recreation
Mailcode 4632
Southern Illinois University
Carbondale IL, 62901-4632
—————————–

Mark Fulop Feb 17 02:18PM -0800 ^
Tyler,

The list has been quiet. Thanks for stirring it up. When have health
educators ever had a role in the medical industrial complex? I went
into health education, in part to become an antagonist to the medical
industry. When I got training it was from the perspective that health
educators have always been those seeking to overthrow the profit
driven disease model of health care and seeking to prevent disease
through education, advocacy and organizing. My advice to those
wanting clinical skills that they become the other kind of doctor : )

Having said that, and knowing that there are many health educators
hoping to embed themselves in the lucrative medical industrial
complex, I think the discipline could learn a lot from the library
sub-discipline of medial librarianship (note the Medical Library
Association has a peer reviewed journal that
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/journals/93/). These librarians have
found a way to make themselves as integral service provider in the
clinical environment. I would point out a great collection of
resources to sup your thinking in this direction.
http://www.mlanet.org/resources/vital/

m

–
Mark Fulop, MA, MPH

Facilitation & Process, LLC
“Productive meetings. Smart strategies. Lasting Impact
PO Box 18144
Portland, OR 97218-0144

——–

“Froehle, Mary” Feb 17 05:37PM -0600 ^
I would disagree that health educators working in the medical field have “imbedded” themselves in the “medical industrial complex.” I am proud that the work health educators do can prevent or improve chronic health conditions when medicine can only do so much. Unfortunately, the population I work with, we all may work with, may already have elevated blood pressure, be overweight, not currently participate in regular physical activity, or not regularly test for things like cervical cancer, etc. Health education involves not only primary prevention approaches, but in many cases, secondary and sometimes tertiary strategies. The Medical Home Model, for example, was referred to in an earlier email by Dr. Stephen Brown. Health educators can, do, and will play a crucial role in the coordination of care, patient education, and measurement of outcomes for this Model and the Chronic Care Model. When health educators work in a healthcare setting, positive outcomes may include a reduction in the number of medications taken, less emergency room visits, improvement in chronic conditions, and the prevention of life-threatening diseases (such as cancers). As people live longer and develop chronic conditions, the need for health educators in the medical/healthcare setting will grow. Not all health educators can teach in an academic setting, work at the state or local health department, or run a for-profit consulting business. Some, like me, work with patients in a clinical setting (in a not-so lucrative, yet fiscally responsible, publically- owned safety net hospital) where the right combination of clinical intervention and health education will optimistically lead to positive outcomes.

Mary Froehle, BS, CHES
Care Coordinator – Medical Home
Broadlawns Medical Center
1801 Hickman Road
Des Moines, IA 50314

———————

“Watson, Tyler” Feb 17 04:46PM -0700 ^
Mary’s experience and position is what I refer to when I say we need to position for the future. HMO’s will be back (albeit with a new name– medical home etc) and health educators and their preparation programs need to ensure that we are ready for the demands that will be placed on us to help contain costs, prevent and manage disease and “rethink” the classic medical model.

Tyler Watson

——————————

Mark Fulop Feb 17 03:49PM -0800 ^
Mary,

Please don’t get me wrong, inherent in Tyler’s opening post was
concern about health care cost containment. True costs are contained
before people walk through the doors of the Medical Industrial
Complex. As I just said in an email to an individual on the list
“Health education embedded in the hospital is pulling bodies out of
the water as they float by. Community health education is about going
upstream and figuring out why people are falling into the river in the
first place and preventing it at the source rather than the end stage.
Isn’t that where true health care cost containment is to be found?”
So my opening was more of a philosophical statement about health
education as primary rather than tertiary care.

Also don’t ignore the other half of my post that pointed to the MLA
model of taking what, on the surface, seems tangential to health care
(library science) and making a direct valuae add to the medical
system. I suggest for those in tertiary care that such is the
approach that health Educators need to be stronger in.

m

–
Mark Fulop, MA, MPH

Facilitation & Process, LLC
“Productive meetings. Smart strategies. Lasting Impact
PO Box 18144
Portland, OR 97218-0144

—————–

Ranjita Misra Feb 17 09:31PM ^
FYI

Ranjita Misra, PhD, CHES
Professor & Research Director
Center for the Study of Health Disparities (CSHD)
Department of Health and Kinesiology
Member, Intercollegiate Faculty of Nutrition
158V Read Building
Texas A&M University, College Station, TX 77843

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

THURSDAY, FEB. 17, 2011

** CENSUS BUREAU MEDIA ADVISORY **

Census Bureau to Release Local 2010 Census Data
for Alabama, Colorado, Hawaii, Missouri, Nevada, Oregon,
Utah and Washington

What: Next week, the U.S. Census Bureau anticipates releasing local-level 2010 Census population counts for Alabama, Colorado, Hawaii, Missouri, Nevada, Oregon, Utah and Washington. For each state, the Census Bureau will provide summaries of population totals, as well as data on race, Hispanic origin and voting age for multiple geographies within the state, such as census blocks, tracts, voting districts, cities, counties and school districts.

According to Public Law 94-171, the Census Bureau must provide redistricting data to the 50 states no later than April 1 of the year following the census. As a result, the Census Bureau is delivering the data state-by-state on a flow basis in February and March. All states will receive their data by April 1, 2011.

When: Each state’s geographic products and redistricting data are first delivered to the state’s leadership, such as the governor and majority and minority leaders in the state legislative body. Upon confirmation of delivery to the state leadership, we will release a news release with five custom tables of data. Within 24 hours, the full set of five detailed tables will be available to the public online at <http://factfinder2.census.gov>.

For more information on the Census Bureau’s Redistricting Data Program, visit <http://www.census.gov/rdo>.

Online Press Kit:

For more information about the U.S. Census Bureau, please visit <http://www.census.gov<http://www.census.gov/>> and <http://2010.census.gov/news/press-kits/redistricting.html> and follow us on Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, Flickr and YouTube (/uscensusbureau).

As we begin the first day of the awareness campaign I would like to ask the new and the returning health educator the following question:

1.  Do you see yourself as a primary preventionist and how could “health education” be cost effective in the new healthcare reform bill passed last year?

2.  Where do you see “health education” in the healthcare reform act as a cost effective health outcome in healthcare?

3.  Please post evidence-based initiatives, programs, that result from health education initiatives, programs specifically in the realm of the three levels of prevention (primary, secondary and tertiary).

Kathleen J. Young, M.P.H., Ph.D., M.S.
Associate Professor
Coordinator, COUGH-Northridge(Campus’s Organized &  United for Good Health)
Department of Health Sciences
College of Health and Human Development
California State University, Northridge
18111 Nordhoff Street
Northridge, CA  91330
818-677-4725
Fax:  818-677-2045

We’ve been trying to make the HEDIR page more user-friendly and in that effort we’ve ignored the blog.  So starting today I’ll start making a concerted effort to contribute.  If you’ve been following the HEDIR, there has been a major discussion on the role of CHES and its importance/relevance, licensure of health educators and this has eventually led into a conversation about the role of health educators and RNs who deliver health education.

A few questions…

1)  Should health education move into the licensure stage?  If so, how much would you be willing to ‘pay’ for such license?  If no, why not?

2)  Although they may not be academically trained as health educators, are there other professions capable of providing effective health education?  If so, who and why?

More to come.

For those of us in health education and public health this has been a fascinating time. Removing the human side of the issues (deaths, illness, etc.) and looking at this from strictly a public health issue this has been a wonderful case study on how to deal with an emergency. For those in educational settings this is well worth time talking about this situation. A few things that I’ve noted:

• Despite a lackluster effort in the last few years of his administration, the Bush’s Administration appears to have done exceptional preparation (based on the Avian Flu) for dealing with this sort of problem. Let’s give credit where credit is due. A few years ago we were concerned about the Bird Flu (which didn’t really pan out). Yet, efforts were made to provide a framework to prepare for this. We’re seeing the results of this plan and it appears to be working well.
• We’re seeing the importance that public health is playing in this situation. It’s so refreshing to see public health officials who are acknowledged for their expertise and knowledge rather than demonized (as we have seen in the past). Most people don’t want to pay taxes, but if they do they want to see the benefits resulting from such. I think the fact that the U.S. has the best established public health routine in the world is pretty evident with an event such as this, and most people that I have talked to feel that the money we’ve invested in the CDC is well worth it.
• We’re seeing the continuing emergence of the county public health department as the leader in emergency preparedness. I’m not sure how it is in the other states, but after 9-11 we realized that our emergency preparedness was in a real disarray. In a study that Dale Ritzel (former colleague of mine) and I did in the early 90s we found that everybody in our community (probably true with most places throughout the U.S.) had their own unique emergency preparedness plan but nobody was talking to the other players in the community. For example, here in Carbondale, SIU had a plan; the local hospital had a plan; the emergency personnel had a plan; the city had a plan, but nobody coordinated all such parties (or if they did nobody knew about it). After 9-11, here in Illinois, the county health departments stepped up to the plate and took over that control. Here in Jackson County (home county of SIU), the emergency preparedness coordinator at the health department is an MPH health educator. It makes perfect sense for this type of person to take over the lead. They have great planning and organizing skills, know how to work with various groups. What a great opportunity to show our students what health educators actually do.

I’m also privy to a very special situation. My wife, also an MPH trained health educator also works at the local health department (Division Director of HIV Services) who is also a key person in the emergency preparedness scenario. In addition to her regular work expectations, she also has key roles in emergencies. I can’t go into detail because of security (and probably because I don’t know them myself), but she has played a key role in receiving medical supplies to deal with the H1N1 outbreak. Last week she was awakened at 2:00 am to receive the drop of supplies. Besides carrying a cool badge she also gets to boss people around (she’s had plenty of practice with me—the difference is that most of these other people listen to her).

Earlier on the HEDIR blog there was a discussion on the terms community health public health. I think this recent event further supports the term that the health education profession needs to affiliate themselves much more with the term public health more and to identify themselves not as community health educators but rather public health educators. Public health has received great attention and it’s becoming a much more revered and respected term.

How about a president calling for a serious investment in preventive care and appearing to know something about what he is proposing? I had often wondered whether I would hear the words spoken by Mr. Obama coming from a seated president in my lifetime.  Public health professionals and health educators employed in all settings should be thrilled with the commitment of President Obama to improve the health of American citizens and gain control of the escalating costs of healthcare insurance. Based on an opinion piece published in The Wall Street Journal on September 16, 2008, David J, Cutler, J. Bradford DeLong, and Ms. Marciarille state that health insurance premiums doubled during the period of 2000-2007.

No wonder the support for Mr. Obama’s performance jumped from 63% approval to 80% approval following his speech on Tuesady evening. He plans to take action in areas that have been greatly neglected for far too long. I suspect that approval of Mr. Obama’s performance among professional health educators is even higher.

It seems like daily I have 2-3 action alerts in my email box at work and perhaps as many with my home email account. I am one of those cause-based folks supporting environmental issues, peace and justice issues, health issues and human rights issues. Unfortunately Internet technology makes it so easy to create an online action alert that EVERYTHING becomes an “act now or else” issue.

The net effect of this inundation of actions is the creation of a cacophony of noise which fragments our message in a million directions. The causality of the this noise is the attention of political leaders, the opposite of what we hope to do. I have been told by political staffers that email advocacy, especially that which appears to be generated by commercial software, is treated as spam.

So, the question is, what does real advocacy look like? For example, I received an action alert on the HEDIR Listserv.

Tell President Obama: No More Money for Ineffective Abstinence-Only-Until-Marriage Programs;  Fund Comprehensive Sex Education

My first question was, is there anything that would suggest that Obama or his team will continue to perpetuate the myth of abstinence only sex ed?  Likely not, considering that during the campaign we heard “Obama’s one accomplishment in the realm of education was legislation to teach ‘comprehensive sex education’ to kindergartners.” Despite how this was a distortion, the underlying reality is that President Obama supports age-appropriate, comprehensive sex education.  So the question is, “why this action alert?”  Is spamming President Obama is the right method for advocating on this issue?

Anyone who has worked on policy change or, better yet, shifting federal or local funding through policy, likely knows that the process is a tad more complicated than having 10,000 people spam a legislator.   Advocacy is not about creating spam but is the work of creating an intentional plan to build a coalition of support for an idea and then strategically working the very complex political process to push through the bureaucratic inertia until change happens.  I hate to see us fall for the illusion of advocacy, thinking that we are making a difference because of a click of a mouse because often when we click the mouse we aren’t advocating but merely creating noise.

On the same day, that I received the invitation to spam the president I received from the American Public Health Association the following update

“Representative Louise Slaughter (D-N.Y.) and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) introduced H.R. 463/S. 21, the Prevention First Act, to promote pregnancy prevention and reproductive health. The bill includes a measure to fund age-appropriate, medically accurate comprehensive sexuality education programs, including information on contraception and abstinence. Currently, federal funding only exists for abstinence-only programs and totals about $176 million per year. Critics of abstinence-only programs claim that the programs do not deter adolescents from having sex. Moreover, they fail to prepare adolescents to become sexually active or protect themselves from unintended pregnancy, sexually transmitted infections and HIV/AIDS and, in some cases, include false or misleading information. Last year, APHA Executive Director Georges Benjamin testified before the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform in support of funding for comprehensive sexuality education programs. You can read APHA’s testimony at: http://www.apha.org/NR/rdonlyres/11DDC21C-1AFB-4167-80D0-F365E3AEE0FA/0/AbstinenceOnlyTestimony.pdf.”

So, I would suggest that a better advocacy strategy would be not to tell Obama to stop funding abstinence-only sex education but to positively work to advance this bill. With a bill number you have the power to direct your representative to take positive action. In this case, we should be working with our local Representatives and Senators and be asking them to sign on to this bill as co-sponsors.  That allows you to make a direct positive contribution to real legislation rather than a non-descriptive, “please don’t fund abstinence only education” blast email. This takes more than a click of a mouse. It means making a local call to your representatives offices, writing and mailing a handwritten letter and, if feasible, meeting with your legislators’ staffers if your legislator could influence the process, for example if they sit on influential committees like:

House Science Committee
House Education and Labor
House Appropriations health subcommittee
Senate Health, Education and Labor
Senate Appropriations Labor, Health Subcommittee

Please understand that this post is about advocacy and is only secondarily related to comprehensive sex ed. Comprehensive sex ed was just a low hanging piece of fruit that I could hang this post on.

For more resources on Health Advocacy see:

National Association of County and City Health Officials: http://www.naccho.org/advocacy/

]]> http://hedir.org/2009/02/12/advocacy-is-more-than-spam/feed/ 1 http://hedir.org/2009/02/04/the-political-dream/ http://hedir.org/2009/02/04/the-political-dream/#comments Wed, 04 Feb 2009 11:00:02 +0000 Mark J Kittleson http://hedir.hpcareernetwork.com/?p=259 As many of you know I love politics.  In fact there are a couple of things I think would be really neat to accomplish in my life.

a) Make a million dollars, b) Attain a power position in government

And now I have a clear understanding of how to achieve that ideal… Just 3 simple things I need to do.

1) Change my party affiliation to Democrat

2) Make it known that I would like to have a powerful position in Washington and ask my friends to tell people I am the best person for the job.

3) Quit paying taxes!

From the heart of the rockies

TDub

I wonder if 150 years ago, the first American President from Illinois would have predicted the second American President from Illinois would be a black man.  I wonder if 150 years ago when Lincoln uttered the words “I do order and declare that all persons held as slaves within said designated States, and parts of States, are, and henceforward shall be free” he foresaw a Nation so energized about a freed man becoming THEIR president.  I wonder if 150 years ago, Lincoln would have predicted that the country would be as unified as it is… all behind a fellow Illinoisan.

Today marks a time in American politics that many have awaited and never thought possible.  An African American sits at the helm of the greatest Nation on earth… and the color of his skin could matter less.  When his signature is applied to a piece of paper, it becomes binding law of this land… and the color of his skin could matter less.  We are a great country.  And I see today as a great unifying day.  A day when we follow a leader that 150 years ago would not have been able to be president because the color of his skin mattered more than his wisdom, knowledge, or capacity.

President Obama inspired us yesterday.  “Today I say to you that the challenges we face are real. They are serious and they are many. They will not be met easily or in a short span of time. But know this, America – they will be met”.

Yes, Barack Obama is my president.  Yes, I pray for his success and achievement.  Yes, I will follow his orders when duly given.  No, I do not agree with some of his policy proposals.  No, I will not sit ideally by and accept his decisions as gospel.  No, I will not hold to my political party more than my interest in a better America.

I believe in a participatory government.  One in which my voice is just as important as Bill Gates.  One in which my vote is equal to my peers.  One in which my ideals are represented by servants of this country.  We can make a difference in America, even… especially when we disagree.  Let us discuss issues that matter, for we frequently want the same end… and we can find compromise on the means.

On this first full day (now second because of my incompetence) in office of a new president I say:  God Bless Barack Obama and God bless the United States of America.

From the Heart of the Rockies

TDub