Associate Director of Health Services Research Dr. Daniel Chu and general surgery residents Drs. Samantha Baker and Lauren Theiss attend Proclamation Day on Sept. 16 in Montgomery, Alabama, to welcome Health Literacy Month with Gov. Kay Ivey. (Photo via governoriveyphotos.com)
UAB Associate Professor of Surgery Daniel Chu, M.D., and general surgery residents Samantha Baker, M.D., and Lauren Theiss, M.D., traveled to Montgomery, Alabama, on Monday to see Gov. Kay Ivey declare October 2019 as Health Literacy Month.
Ivey signed the proclamation at Monday’s ceremony where Chu, Baker and Theiss joined other providers from across the state, including the UAB School of Nursing’s Joy Deupree, Ph.D., in celebrating the declaration. Deupree also co-chairs the Alabama Health Literacy Initiative, while Baker serves as a member of the AHLI’s advisory board.
Research led by Chu, Deupree and their team recently found that, while low health literacy is prevalent across every socioeconomic class, race and geographic origin in the surgical population, certain groups face an even higher risk for having low health literacy, as well as poor health outcomes and experiences.
In 2016, an executive order by Alabama Gov. Robert Bentley created the Health Literacy Partnership of Alabama. Although the work of the partnership concluded in February 2017, it produced a strategic plan to begin efforts to improve health literacy in the state.