Check out the new Understanding Medical Words tutorial from the National Library of Medicine. This tutorial teaches you about medical words. You’ll learn about how to put together parts of medical words. You’ll also find quizzes to see what you’ve learned. http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/medicalwords.html

by Beth Wescott, editor, SEA Currents, bwescott@hshsl.umaryland.edu

Diabetes Resource for Spanish Speakers

http://estudiabetes.com/ is a social networking site in Spanish dedicated to people of all ages with diabetes condition, and to the parents of children with diabetes. The main purpose is to share experiences in dealing with the disease, as well as to share with others information about diabetes. The site also provides breaking news on diabetes.

Office of Minority (OMH)/Oficina de Salud de las Minorías

http://www.omhrc.gov/espanol/ offers Spanish-language health information on a wide range of health topics, a profile about the health of Hispanic Americans, and health news. OMH is part of the U. S. Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS).

MedlinePlus Información de Salud de la Biblioteca Nacional de Medicina

http://medlineplus.gov/spanish/ es un portal médico informativo. Contiene guías, enciclopedia, tutoriales interactivos, así como novedades y noticias sobre temas relacionados. Véase también el primer número de la revista NIH MedlinePlus Salud ya está en línea. ¡Visítela!

Maternal and Child Health (MCH) Library Knowledge Path: Spanish-Language Health Resources

http://www.mchlibrary.info/KnowledgePaths/kp_spanish.html

This guide, or knowledge path, has been compiled by the Maternal and Child Health Library at Georgetown University. It points to current, high-quality Spanish-language health resources for health professionals and consumers. The first section presents general resources that cover a wide range of health topics, while the second section lists resources that focus on specific aspects of maternal and child health.

Spanish-Language Health Guides for Workers Older Than 50 …

The Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) has two checklists to help workers stay healthy at 50+. The checklists help answer questions about what daily steps can be taken for good health, whether one needs medicines to prevent disease, and which screening tests are needed and when to get them. “Mujeres: sigan sanas después de los 50″ and “Hombres: sigan sanos después de los 50,” are available at www.ahrq.gov/consumer/women50sp.pdf and www.ahrq.gov/consumer/men50sp.pdf, respectively. The wall chart, “Seguir sanos después de los 50,” is available at www.ahrq.gov/consumer/50pluspostersp.pdf.

http://www.childrenshealthfund.org/publications/healthed.php

The Children’s Health Fund is committed to providing health care to the nation’s most medically underserved children and their families, in part, by creating low-literacy health education materials to assist children and their families in learning about a variety of health related topics. Their culturally relevant booklets and brochures are available in English and Spanish.

The Hesperian Foundation

http://www.hesperian.org/, a non-profit publisher of books and newsletters for community-based health care, has recently published two titles in Spanish: Un manual de salud para mujeres con discapacidad, the Spanish version of A Health Handbook for Women with Disabilities and Helping Children Who are Deaf, Ayudar a los nios sordos. Packed with simple activities, this book is a great resource for parents, caregivers, health promoters, and others in teaching children who do not hear well how to communicate to the best of his or her ability. Both titles can be downloaded and purchased from their new Spanish website http://www.espanol.hesperian.org/ and the online library with free downloads http://www.hesperian.org/publications_download.php

http://www.ahrq.gov/populations/sahlsatool.htm

Two health literacy measurement tools developed by AHRQ grantees are now available on AHRQ’s Web site:

• Rapid Estimate of Adult Literacy in Medicine - Short Form (REALM-SF): a 7-item word recognition test to provide clinicians with a valid quick assessment of patient health literacy.
• Short Assessment of Health Literacy for Spanish Adults (SAHLSA-50): a 50-item instrument designed to assess a Spanish-speaking adult’s ability to read and understand common medical terms in Spanish.

The Rapid Estimate of Adult Literacy in Medicine—Short Form (REALM-SF) has been validated and field tested in diverse research setting, and has excellent agreement with the 66-item REALM instrument in terms of grade-level assignments.

The Short Assessment of Health Literacy for Spanish Adults (SAHLSA-50) is a validated health literacy assessment tool. The SAHLSA is based on the Rapid Estimates of Adult Literacy in Medicine (REALM), known as the most easily administered tool for assessing health literacy in English.

Both health literacy measurement tools, along with instruction for administering them, can be found at: http://www.ahrq.gov/populations/sahlsatool.htm.