About the Bright Futures for Women’s Health and
Wellness Initiative
The Bright Futures for Women’s Health and Wellness
(BFWHW) initiative is a project of the U.S. Department of Health and Human
Services’ Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA), Office of
Women’s Health. The mission of BFWHW is to plan, develop, implement, and
evaluate a variety of culturally competent consumer, provider, and
community-based products for all women across their lifespan—including
underserved and minority women. The Bright Futures materials help to promote
women’s physical, emotional, social, and spiritual health and
well-being.
About the BFWHW Physical Activity and Healthy Eating Guides
Patients look to their health care providers for information
about physical activity and healthy eating. Helping patients improve these
behavioral patterns can lead to better health outcomes, such as decreased
overweight/obesity, and lower health care costs.
The My Bright Future: Physical Activity and Healthy Eating
Guides for Young Women (adolescents) and Adult Women enable providers to:
- Quickly and easily assess their patients’ physical
activity and healthy eating behaviors.
- Make recommendations for improvements.
- Help patients set goals.
- Direct patients to more information.
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Patients look to their health care providers for
information about physical activity and healthy eating. Helping patients
improve these behavioral patterns can lead to better health outcomes, such as
decreased overweight/obesity, and lower health care costs.
The My Bright Future: Physical Activity and Healthy
Eating Guides for Young Women (adolescents) and Adult Women enable providers
to:
- Quickly and easily assess their patients’
physical activity and healthy eating behaviors.
- Make recommendations for improvements.
- Help patients set goals.
- Direct patients to more information.
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This Handbook provides information on
BFWHW physical activity and healthy eating materials for patients and
providers. It also contains information on how to:
- Train staff to use these
materials.
- Implement them within the clinic
setting.
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HRSA pilot tested the Guide for Adult Women with
administrators, health care providers, and more than 900 female patients at
several HRSA-funded health clinics, including one that served a predominantly
Latina population. The Guide tested well. Several important findings resulted
from the pilot test:
- Using the Guide added only a few minutes to patient
visits.
- The Guide worked well across the lifespan and
racial and ethnic groups.
- The Guide greatly enhanced or facilitated
patient-provider discussions on physical activity and healthy eating.
- The Guide was easy for most women to read.
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The patient Guides are
written at a 6th-grade reading level and are easy for most women to
read. |
HRSA also pretested the Guide for Young Women and companion
wallet card among 26, 11- to 20-year-old females in Baltimore, Maryland. Again,
findings from the pretest were positive and indicated that the young women:
- Liked the language and format of the Guide and wallet
card.
- Would use the Guide as a first step in talking to health
care providers about physical activity and healthy eating.
- Would use the Guide to help them make decisions about
healthier eating choices.
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