The New York College of Podiatric Medicine (NYCPM) is committed to raise its’ organizational health literacy level among faculty, staff, and students to step up the organization’s ability to meet Healthy Objectives 2030, specifically targeting the Health Literacy Related Objectives. The New York College of Podiatric Medicine (NYCPM) is committed in improving patient communication skills among the podiatric medical student and strengthening ways for patients to be more involved in decisions about their health care. We would like to train our faculty, staff, and students to enable their patients the ability to find, understand, and most importantly, use the information presented to patients so they can make health related decisions and actions for themselves. This proposed initiative will include the following program components:

• -  Evaluate health literacy awareness among faculty, staff, and students

• -  Conduct an educational workshop for faculty, staff, and students on the importance of health literacy, and discuss strategies in the use of new resources with patients while

  providing health literate care.

• -  Assess with patients whether they found the resources useful and easy to understand.

  This project also aims to improve the selection of materials offered to patients about their chronic health conditions, specifically targeting patients with diabetes, and assist them in the self-management of their disease. These materials would serve as educational mediums for the NYCPM Foot Clinic patients who may have varying degrees of literacy and assist them in building knowledge and self- efficacy skills while managing their health. These materials would also be in Spanish, which there is a paucity of materials available to our Spanish speaking patients.

  With this grant, we anticipate purchasing a variety of materials which include several graphic medicine materials (such as books, comics books, and fotonovelas). The request also includes reproduction costs that will cover duplication of open access materials (e.g., the Center for Disease Control’s health education materials on diabetes and the American Diabetes Association’s Diabetes Placemat) and the purchase of the University of Southern California’s School of Pharmacy’s digital “Sweet Temptations.”