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Health Literacy and Older
Immigrants:
Promising Practices for
Preparing Health Professions Students
As part of
SHINE-MetLife Foundation Health Literacy Initiative, Project
SHINE engaged health professions students from eight
universities and colleges in service-learning projects to
improve older immigrants’ health literacy and to prepare
students to be more culturally competent healthcare providers.
Over a
thousand students from a range of disciplines offered services
for immigrant elders by conducting health workshops, providing
health screenings and exercise classes, planning and
implementing community health fairs, developing health-related
materials, and tutoring in ESL classrooms utilizing our health
literacy materials.
During the
2005-2006 Academic Year, assessment of initiative activities
helped to identify factors for successful service-learning
implementation. This assessment was conducted through interviews
with project coordinators, faculty, and community site staff;
review of course syllabi and assignments; and pre- and
post-service surveys of students.
The final
report describes five promising practices:
Each of
these practices is described in detail and vignettes demonstrate
the principles in practice. In addition, the document offers
student training materials, profiles of the six institutions of
higher education which participated in the initiative that year,
and results of surveys completed by health professions students.
You can
download the report
here. | 
