Health Education and Literacy (HEAL) Project

The Health Education and Literacy (HEAL) Project at The University of Texas Health Science Center at Tyler aims to improve access to health information for rural and underserved communities in East Texas. The HEAL Project will have a specific emphasis on health equity using the REACH (Racial and Ethnic Approaches to Health) framework from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) (Giles et al., 2004). By creating and disseminating information with interactive components, the project seeks to remove barriers to reliable health information that impede health literacy, medication adherence, trust in health providers and the use of health information resources. Additionally, the program will engage community partners in informal education and training through workshops that promote National Library of Medicine (NLM) resources for educational activities in schools and community settings. Explaining health literacy benefits to navigate telehealth and telemedicine in rural and underserved communities successfully may help empower citizens to take more people to access health information and improve health literacy. The COVID-19 pandemic underpins the urgent need for infrastructure and implementation of plans to equip citizens and communities with the technology and health literacy to take full advantage of digital health promotion. Dissemination and access to reputable health information is a linchpin for health promotion in the technology- driven society.