Forgot password?
Login / Register
Philadelphia’s Temple University School of Medicine is using the modern-day equivalent of the town crier – the cell phone – to reach local neighborhoods with important healthcare information.
Temple is using a $100,000 grant from the Verizon Foundation to push cardiovascular health information out to neighboring communities through text messaging. Officials say the information being sent to these typically underserved populations will be channeled through community leaders and organizations, thereby giving it added weight.
Simply put, you may not listen to advice from a doctor as much as you would from your reverend or the local community center director.
“You can tell someone that their blood pressure needs to be 120 over 80, or that they should go out for a walk to get exercise, but it’s not enough,” said William Santamore, a professor of medicine and director of telemedicine research at Temple, in a recent news story published by the university. “We need to provide actionable information, which is why we are working with trusted community leaders, to learn the best ways to do that.”
Verizon’s grant will be used by Temple to expand its Telemedicine Light program, in which doctors develop targeted, customized e-mail messages with community leaders that address the unique concerns – cultural, economic or linguistic – of a specific community. Once those messages are relayed by community leaders to the targeted population, community members are urged to sign up for weekly messages from Temple containing information on cardiovascular disease and how to prevent it.
Temple’s program will be disseminated through three community sites, Congreso de Latinos Unidos, the Maria de los Santos Health Center and the Health and Social Services Ministry of Triumph Baptist Church.
Tremayne Askew, a member of Triumph’s Health and Social Services Ministry as well as Temple’s Community Ambassador Program, told the university newspaper that the cell phone is the ideal method for getting out the message. Not everyone will see a news report, she said, but they all have cell phones and they will get a text message.
And if they get the message from someone they know, they’re more likely to listen.
‘I don’t think people in our community realize how much heart disease affects them,” she added. “They don’t understand the risk, or that it can be mitigated. Or they think they have to completely overhaul their lives. With a little education, people will see that these changes don’t need to be done all at once. It can be gradual and for in with their lifestyle.”
More information about formatting options
