Florida Office on Disability & Health
FODH Funded Module Projects
Module B: The Right to Know
For US women, breast cancer is the most frequently diagnosed cancer and the second leading cause of cancer death. Last year in Florida, nearly 12,000 women were diagnosed and almost 3,000 died from breast cancer. Prominent organizations recommend women aged 40 and older receive a mammogram every 1 or (1-2) years. Increased and regular use of early detection measures along with enhanced treatment options have been attributed to improved breast cancer survival rates. Still, many women living with physical disabilities are significantly less likely to have been screened with the recommended guidelines, than women without disabilities. This puts these women at risk for late-stage diagnosis and poor health outcomes. For Florida, this presents a significant public health concern as nearly 1 in 5 women in our state are living with at least one disability.
To address this issue the CDC created the Right to Know campaign, which consists of health promotion materials in both English and Spanish that include: posters, flyers, print ads, tip sheets and MP3 audio files. These materials feature four breast cancer survivors living with physical disabilities who share their personal and heartfelt messages about breast cancer screening.
This new campaign is being implemented in four US states, including Florida from 2007 to 2012. Our goal in Florida is to use these materials to help raise awareness about the importance of breast cancer screening, and encourage recommended screening among women who are forty years and older, and living with a physical disability.
We welcome your help with this dissemination effort. If you are interested in receiving these free health promotion materials or would like to learn more about this campaign please use the following contact information.
PI and Project Staff:
Allyson Hall, PhD
Associate Professor
Department of Health Services, Research, Management and Policy
University of Florida
Email: hallag@phhp.ufl.edu
Eva Egensteiner, MA, CPH
Project Manager
Department of Health Services, Research, Management and Policy
University of Florida
Email: eegenst@phhp.ufl.edu
For more information on the Florida Right To Know campaign and for Florida specific resources on breast health screening, please visit:
http://rtk.phhp.ufl.edu/
For more information on our related study on breast health and women living with physical disabilities, please visit: http://withuss.phhp.ufl.edu
Module E: Towards Healthcare Parity for Floridians with Disabilities: Teaching Core Competencies in Disability to Healthcare Providers
This project works with faculty members in the department of medicine at University of South Florida to enhance their clinical curriculum to provide disability training to 600 students enrolled in the 3rd year of medical school and to measure the growth in knowledge, aptitude, comfort and attitude in providing treatment to individuals with disabilities. In addition, the project will disseminate the field-tested core competence in disability curriculum and implementation guide to other interested programs for integration into their clinical training. These training initiatives will expose students to disability issues and build core competence in intellectual, sensory, and physical disabilities. The overall goal of this project is to increase the capacity of health care providers in Florida to provide quality healthcare to persons with disabilities. Towards this goal, we propose to establish and evaluate a core competence in disability by providing disability training to medical students and continuing education training to medical and allied health professionals across the state.
PI:
Susan M. Havercamp, PhD, Assistant Professor
Florida Center for Inclusive Communities
Florida Mental Health Institute
University of South Florida
13301 Bruce B. Downs Boulevard, MHC2113A
Tampa, FL 33612
813-974-7076 (Office)/813-974-6115 (Fax)
Email: shavercamp@fmhi.usf.edu
Find more information on this topic, visit: http://flfcic.fmhi.usf.edu/projects/health.htm
Module F: Supplemental Surveillance
Surveillance is a vital component of public health, enabling us to quantify risks and outcomes of interest across a population. Surveillance is also an established priority of the Disability and Health Program in Florida in line with Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Healthy People 2010 goals for improved disability surveillance data. The data historically collected on Florida’s Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System (BRFSS) do not include many issues of interest to the Partners and stakeholders in Florida. The BRFSS is a telephone survey administered by Florida and all states and territories in partnership with the CDC. We will add BRFSS questions and modules to increase the richness of disability and health data collected and analyzed through the Office on Disability and Health and for our Partners.
Topics for the supplemental questions are proposed by our Partners. During 2008, we are collecting information from Florida adults on their experiences with caregiving and about people they provide care for. During 2009, we will collect additional information on access to healthcare for people with disabilities.
PI and Project Staff:
Elena Andresen, PhD
Professor and Chair
Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics
University of Florida
Email: andresen@phhp.ufl.edu
Erin DeFries, M.P.H.
Instructor
Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics
University of Florida
Email: edefries@phhp.ufl.edu
Find more information on this topic:
Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System - http://www.cdc.gov/brfss/
Our reports - http://fodh.phhp.ufl.edu/publications/