Paula Hunt's Page

Just how much does low health literacy cost? In Missouri it's in the range of $3.3 billion to $7.5 billion annually. In Boone County it's estimated to cost $128.9 million a year.



Why so expensive? Individuals with low health literacy are less likely to use preventive care, are more likely to be hospitalized and have poor disease outcomes, among other things.



It's been estimated that low health literacy costs the U.S. economy $106 billion to $238 billion a… Continue

When it comes to researching Columbia's senior community, I would never have thought to contact the local Head Start program. So, it's a good thing Trisha Wright of Central Missouri Community Action gave me a call. She told me about their health literacy program for families and invited me to come by.



After visiting with Trisha and program director Mernell King, I had my "No, duh" moment.



Of course seniors are part of… Continue

You never know where health literacy will pop up.



Here, from an article in the February 9 & 16 New Yorker on tinnitus is a perfect a perfect illustration.



The article relates how Army colonel Kathy Gates convinced reluctant soldiers to wear combat-arms earplugs to protect their hearing.



"Gates has helped develop a strategy for persuading Army personnel to wear the earplugs in combat by linking their use to success in battle rather than to long-term… Continue

The HealthCommons gang returned safely from its trip to Kansas and stay at the haunted Eldridge Hotel.
Visiting the LJWorld group and learning how the guts of its CMS system "Ellington" works was extremely helpful in imagining how the Senior Health Web site can be designed so it will be useful to the community.

Today a brave few of our Health Commons group will load up our wagons and head west to Kansas to visit the folks at Mediaphormedia and World Company, which publish LJWorld.

Not sure who will have more questions -- them or us. But, surely, each side will know a lot more by the time we head back East on Friday evening.