San Antonio — Health Confianza’s Melanie Stone and Empower House’s Angelita Negrón spoke with “Fronteras,” a Texas Public Radio show, on the topic of health equity and Health Confianza’s Pledge Program.
Here’s an excerpt from the show:
Making informed health care decisions for yourself or your loved ones often relies on the ability to access and understand the health information you have been given.
Whether its confusion over instructions on a new medication or having to maneuver through insurance paperwork, the complexities of the U.S. healthcare system have caused everyone to struggle with health literacy at some point.
Improving health literacy can come down to two factors: communication and trust.
UT Health San Antonio and the University of Texas at San Antonio joined efforts for the Health Confianza project — which translates to health “trust.” It’s a community wide effort to improve health literacy across 22 target zip codes inSan Antonio.
Melanie Stone, assistant director for community service learning at the Center for Medical Humanities and Ethics at UT Health San Antonio, said the program aims to rebuild the broken relationship many people — especially those in underserved communities — have with the healthcare system.
“Information and digital health literacy has really come to the forefront because the pandemic has highlighted that people don’t always trust the health care system,” she said.
To listen to the full segment, visit: “Fronteras.”