Toby Perlman, PhD¹, Raymond Rodgers, MSW¹, Carroll Cradock, PhD¹, Dorthea DeGutis, MD¹, Teri Hedding², and Helen Margellos, MPH³. (1) Behavioral Health Services, Advocate Illinois Masonic Medical Center, 938 West Nelson, Chicago, IL 60657, 773/296-3241, toby.perlman@advocatehealth.com, (2) Care Management, Sinai Health System, California at 15th Street, Chicago, IL 60608, (3) Sinai Health System, Sinai Urban Health Institute, California at 15th Street, K450, Chicago, IL 60608

The low health literacy of the Deaf community and other cultural and linguistic minority groups contributes to difficulties negotiating health care systems, communicating with and comprehending providers and appropriately acting on health information, thus impeding the possibility of a positive health outcome. The growing expectations of providers and the increasingly complex self-care responsibilities of consumers which accompany our nation’s current emphasis on outpatient services and managed care further highlight the consumer need for improved health literacy, self-efficacy and symptom management skills. The first year of a three year collaborative study by Advocate Health Care’s Deaf and Hard of Hearing Program and Sinai Health System’s Deaf Access Program addresses the health education needs of Chicago’s Deaf community by developing a culturally and linguistically sensitive self-management curriculum for depression and implementing the curriculum in a pilot study with members of the Deaf community. This presentation will describe the steps towards developing such a program and will discuss how to adapt and apply the material development process and the materials themselves to other low health literacy, high risk populations. Consumer feedback from the pilot study also will be discussed.

Learning Objectives: At the conclusion of the session, the participant will be able to

• Adapt and apply the depression self-management curriculum developed for Deaf consumers to other low health literacy, high risk populations
• Identify the most effective techniques to educate consumers with low health literacy on management of their depression
• Describe and discuss the variables which place Deaf persons at high risk for poor health outcomes

Keywords: Depression, Health Literacy

Presenting author's disclosure statement:
I do not have any significant financial interest/arrangement or affiliation with any organization/institution whose products or services are being discussed in this session.