SAN ANTONIO, Texas — Health Confianza, a community-wide health literacy project focused on advancing health equity in San Antonio, is giving away 30 pairs of Health Confianza socks to a total of 30 lucky followers on IG, FB and Snapchat in a random drawing on Feb. 28, 2023. If you win, we’ll direct message you.

Official Rules:

1. Eligibility The Health Confianza Sweepstakes (the “Sweepstakes”) This Sweepstakes is organized by Health Confianza, (“Sponsor”). Employees of Health Confianza, vendors of Health Confianza, and retailers, or any of their respective affiliates, subsidiaries, advertising agencies or any other company or individual involved with the design, production, execution or distribution of the Sweepstakes, and the immediate family (spouse, parents and step-parents, siblings and step-siblings, and children and step-children) and household members (people who share the same residence at least three (3) months out of the year) of each such individual are not eligible. The Sweepstakes is subject to all applicable federal, state and local laws and regulations. Participation constitutes entrant’s full and unconditional agreement to these Official Rules and Administrator’s (as defined in Section 2 below) decisions, which are final and binding in all matters related to the Sweepstakes. Winning a prize is contingent upon fulfilling all requirements set forth herein. No purchase or payment is necessary to enter or win the Sweepstakes.
2. Sponsor and Administrator Sponsor: Health Confianza 7703 Floyd Curl Drive, San Antonio, TX 78229
3. Timing The Sweepstakes begins on February 14, 2023 at 12:00 a.m. Central Time (“CT”) and ends on February 28, 2023 at 11:59 p.m. CT (the “Sweepstakes Period”). Sponsor is the official time-keeper for this Sweepstakes.
4. How to Enter Entry Method: This is a social media contest only. No purchase necessary. To enter follow @HealthConfianza on Facebook, Instagram and Snapchat. No more than ONE (1) entry per person per social channel for the Sweepstakes Period. Multiple entries will automatically result in disqualification. No alterations or forged entries are permitted. Sponsor is not responsible for technical difficulties or Internet service disruptions or other equipment or service issues which might affect an on-line user’s ability to enter and qualify or the ability of Sponsor to notify the winners. Sponsor assumes no responsibility for lost, late, damaged, misdirected, illegible, incomplete, entries or other Sweepstakes materials, all of which are void. Facsimiles or mechanical reproductions will not be accepted and entrants may not use any other device or artifice to enter in excess of the number of entries allowed. All entries become the property of Sponsor and will not be returned.
5. Winner Selection: Grand Prize Winner One (1) Grand Prize Winners will be awarded. The winners will be determined on or around February 14, 2023 in a random drawing among all eligible entries received. Odds of winning a prize will be determined by the total number of eligible entries received. The awarding of the prizes is subject to verification of the potential winner’s eligibility. The selected winners will be tagged on a social media post on Facebook, Instagram, and Snapchat February 28, 2023. Health Confianza will direct message the selected winners on the social platforms to collect their legal name, phone number and other contacted method to arrange the delivery of socks. 1
6. SPONSOR’S DECISIONS AS TO THE ADMINISTRATION AND OPERATION OF THE SWEEPSTAKES AND THE SELECTION OF POTENTIAL WINNER IS FINAL AND BINDING IN ALL MATTERS RELATED TO THE SWEEPSTAKES. AN ENTRANT IS NOT A WINNER OF ANY PRIZE UNLESS AND UNTIL ENTRANT’S ELIGIBILITY AND THE POTENTIAL WINNING ENTRY HAS BEEN VERIFIED. SPONSOR WILL NOT ACCEPT SCREEN SHOTS OR OTHER EVIDENCE OF WINNING IN LIEU OF ITS VALIDATION PROCESS. ANY ENTRY THAT OCCURS AFTER THE SYSTEM HAS FAILED FOR ANY REASON IS DEEMED DEFECTIVE AND IS VOID AND WILL NOT BE HONORED.
7. Verification of Potential Winner Potential winner must continue to comply with all terms and conditions of these Official Rules, and winning is contingent upon fulfilling all requirements. Prize is non-transferable and no substitution will be made except as provided herein at the Sponsor’s sole discretion. Sponsor reserves the right to substitute any listed prize for one of equal or greater value for any reason. Winners are solely responsible for all federal, state and local income taxes.
8. Prizes Thirty (30) Grand Prize winners will win 1 pair of Health Confianza socks. Actual item may differ from depiction of prize in Sweepstakes advertising and Sponsor disclaims any and all liability in conjunction therewith.
9. Entry Conditions and Release By entering, each participant agrees to: (a) comply with and be bound by these Official Rules and the decisions of Sponsor and Administrator, which are binding and final in all matters relating to this Sweepstakes; (b) release and hold harmless Sponsor, Administrator, the prize suppliers and any other organizations responsible for sponsoring, fulfilling, administering, advertising or promoting the Sweepstakes, and all of their respective affiliates and related entities and each of their respective officers, directors, agents, vendors, employees and other representatives (collectively, the “Released Parties”) from and against any and all claims, expenses, and liability, including but not limited to negligence and damages of any kind to persons and property, including but not limited to invasion of privacy (under appropriation, intrusion, public disclosure of private facts, false light in the public eye or other legal theory), defamation, slander, libel, violation of right of publicity, infringement of trademark, copyright or other intellectual property rights, property damage, or death or personal injury arising out of or relating to a participant’s entry, creation of an entry or submission of an entry, participation in the Sweepstakes, acceptance or use or misuse of prize (including any travel or activity related thereto) and/ or the broadcast, exploitation or use of entry; and (c) indemnify, defend and hold harmless the Released Parties from and against any and all claims, expenses, and liabilities (including reasonable attorneys’ fees) arising out of or relating to an entrant’s participation in the Sweepstakes and/or entrant’s acceptance, use or misuse of prize.
10. Publicity Except where prohibited, participation in the Sweepstakes constitutes winners’ consent to Sponsor’s and its agents’ use of winners’ name, likeness, photograph, voice, opinions and/or hometown and state for promotional purposes in any media, worldwide, without further payment or consideration.
11. General Conditions Sponsor reserves the right to cancel, suspend and/or modify the Sweepstakes, or any part of it, if any fraud, technical failures or any other factor beyond Sponsor’s reasonable control impairs the integrity or proper functioning of the Sweepstakes, as determined by Sponsor in its sole discretion. Sponsor reserves the right in its sole discretion to disqualify any individual it finds to be tampering with the entry process 2 or the operation of the Sweepstakes or to be acting in violation of these Official Rules or any other promotion or in an unsportsmanlike or disruptive manner. Any attempt by any person to deliberately undermine the legitimate operation of the Sweepstakes may be a violation of criminal and civil law, and, should such an attempt be made, Sponsor reserves the right to seek damages from any such person to the fullest extent permitted by law. Sponsor’s failure to enforce any term of these Official Rules shall not constitute a waiver of that provision. Entry in the Sweepstakes constitutes an entrant’s full and unconditional agreement to abide by and accept the terms and conditions of these Official Rules. No substitution of prize or cash equivalent except at Sponsor’s sole discretion. Cash equivalent may be less than the approximate retail value of the prize. Prize is non-transferable except at the sole discretion of the Sponsor. All federal, state and local taxes on the prizes are winner’s sole responsibility. By accepting the prize, winner waives the right to assert as a cost of winning said prize, any and all costs of redemption or travel to redeem said prize and any and all liability that might arise from redeeming or seeking said prize.
12. Limitations of Liability The Released Parties are not responsible for: (a) any incorrect or inaccurate information, whether caused by entrants, printing errors or by any of the equipment or programming associated with or utilized in the Sweepstakes; (b) technical failures of any kind, including, but not limited to malfunctions, interruptions or disconnections in phone lines or network hardware or software; (c) unauthorized human intervention in any part of the entry process or the Sweepstakes; (d) technical or human error which may occur in the administration of the Sweepstakes or the processing of entries; or (e) any injury or damage to persons or property which may be caused, directly or indirectly, in whole or in part, from entrant’s participation in the Sweepstakes or receipt or use or misuse of any prize. If for any reason an entrant’s entry is confirmed to have been erroneously deleted, lost or otherwise destroyed or corrupted, entrant’s sole remedy is another entry in the Sweepstakes, provided that if it is not possible to award another entry due to discontinuance of the Sweepstakes, or any part of it, for any reason, Sponsor, at its discretion, may elect to hold a random drawing from among all eligible entries received up to the date of discontinuance for any or all of the prizes offered herein. No more than the stated prize will be awarded. In event that production, technical, seeding, programming or any other reasons cause more than stated number of prizes as set forth in these Official Rules to be available and/or claimed, Sponsor reserves the right to award only the stated prize by a random drawing among all legitimate, unawarded, eligible prize claims.
13. Governing Law All issues and questions concerning the construction, validity, interpretation and enforceability of these Official Rules or the rights and obligations of the Participant, or Sponsor in connection with the Promotion shall be governed by and construed in accordance with the laws of the State of Texas without giving effect to any choice of law or conflict of law rules or provisions that would cause the application of any other state’s laws.
14. Entrant’s Personal Information Information collected from entrants is subject to Sponsor’s Privacy Policy and is available at. Each entrant acknowledges that, by entering the Sweepstakes, entrant has opted into Sponsor’s Privacy Policy and, by opting into Sponsor’s Privacy Policy, has read and accepted Sponsor’s Privacy Policy.
15. Sweepstakes Results For Sweepstakes results will be announced on Social Media platforms Instagram, Facebook, and Snapchat Sponsor: Health Confianza

San Antonio  — The San Antonio Independent School District’s board gave Health Confianza, a community-wide health project, approval to begin offering its health literacy training and curriculum at SAISD schools.

Health Confianza will start by providing its Ambassador program training to faculty, staff and school leaders, which will equip them to deliver health literacy curriculum in a Community Health Club format. After training, Health Confianza Ambassadors will be ready to launch and facilitate their own Community Health Clubs, a free club format where members and facilitators do activities and discuss timely health topics, including COVID, mental health, nutrition and more. The goal of both Ambassador training and Community Health Clubs is to improve health literacy – the ability to find, understand and use health information – for better health outcomes for all.

The partnership will enable Health Confianza to reach teachers, school nurses and students in grades 9-12.

Contact confianza@uthscsa.edu to learn more.

 

 

10 organizations join Health Confianza’s Health Literacy Pledge Program

SAN ANTONIO – Health Confianza, a communitywide effort providing health literacy training and education to the community, professionals and organizations, has welcomed 10 local organizations to its Health Literacy Pledge Program. The program’s partners will adopt health literacy policies, training and practices that will lead to better health outcomes for the people of San Antonio.

Funded by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Office of Minority Health, Health Confianza is a partnership between The University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio (UT Health San Antonio), the City of San Antonio Metropolitan Health District and The University of Texas at San Antonio.

Community-based health organizations, which are those that provide some form of health education and/or health service, are often on the front lines of communicating public health issues with the broader community and connecting them with health resources and social services.

“The COVID pandemic shed light on our health disparities and the fact that some people do not go to health care systems because of a long-standing distrust in the medical system or an inability to access health providers,” said Melanie Stone, MPH, MEd, assistant director of Community Service Learning at UT Health San Antonio and director of Health Confianza’s Health Literacy Pledge Program. “Instead of using traditional health care for their COVID information, vaccines and education, many people continue to visit their trusted community organizations that provide food, housing and other types of health and wellness services.”

To support these organizations, Health Confianza developed an innovative organizational Health Literacy Pledge Program that equips clinics, social service agencies and community organizations to help clients find, understand and use health information to make well-informed decisions that lead to healthier lives.

The program’s first cohort is made up of: Alamo Community Group, CentroMed, Community First Health Plans, Empower House, Living Positive San Antonio (LPSA), SAMMinistries, San Antonio Vascular and Endovascular Clinic (The SAVE Clinic), Texas A&M University-San Antonio, UT Health Physicians and YWCA San Antonio.

“By becoming pledge partners, these 10 organizations are working together to position themselves to better serve clients and improve health equity in San Antonio,” Stone said.

Until recently, organizational health literacy has been an underutilized public health strategy. However, the federal government has now recognized the role of health literacy to build the public’s trust with health providers, increase access to health care and increase health equity.

At its core, organizational health literacy is intended to help remove barriers to accessing and using health care experienced by clients and patients. This includes cultural and linguistic barriers to health care. For example, organizations do not always have the capability to provide a language or sign language interpreter. Additionally, there may not be a policy in place that requires translation of materials into Spanish or other languages their clients use.

“We want them to be able to say that their staff are using teach-back (an evidence-based communications skill) as one type of skill,” Stone said. “We want their forms in a plain language format. Our goal was to not only ask organizations to take a pledge, but to prepare them with the training and resources needed to make meaningful changes at the organization.”

A team of three to five health literacy champions from each of the participating organizations is part of an eight-month learning collaborative that will allow it to learn from field experts and each other to make improvements in their organizational health literacy. After a monthly meeting, the representatives return to their organizations to share knowledge, implement short-term changes and plan for long-term changes.

At the end of the learning collaborative, a June 2023 Health Confianza Symposium will showcase the best practices of each organization. Successful completion of the program will earn the organization a Health Literacy Certificate that they can display in their building, like the health scores that restaurants receive.

Eventually, Stone hopes these certificates will signal to clients that these organizations “prioritize respectful communication and are going the extra mile to ensure their clients will walk away with a better understanding of what to do next,” Stone said.

After this initial pilot of the Health Literacy Pledge Program, Health Confianza plans to open the program more widely to organizations across the community. Look for updated information on the Pledge Program on the Health Confianza website and at the upcoming symposium.

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About Health Confianza
Funded by a U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Office of Minority Health grant, Health Confianza is a communitywide initiative created to increase the availability, acceptability and use of COVID-19 health information and services among Hispanics and Blacks living in 22 target ZIP codes in San Antonio. Established in 2020, Health Confianza serves community members through Community Health Clubs and provides health literacy education to health professionals and organizations. Health Confianza’s partners include The University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio (UT Health San Antonio), the City of San Antonio Metropolitan Health District and The University of Texas at San Antonio.

 

 

SAN ANTONIO (May 13, 2022) — A stalwart team at The University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio (UT Health San Antonio) is engaging health care providers, community members and organizations to improve health literacy and increase the public’s trust in health-affirming messages. The project, made possible by a grant from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services to the San Antonio Metropolitan Health District, is called “Health Confianza.” (Confianza is the Spanish word for “confidence” and/or “trust.”)

The project began in July 2021 and continues work launched by the city- and countywide COVID-19 Community Response and Equity Coalition.

“The goal of Health Confianza is to increase the availability of, access to and use of health information and services to reduce health inequities among African American and Hispanic populations in San Antonio,” said Jason Rosenfeld, DrPH, MPH, implementing director of Health Confianza at UT Health San Antonio. He is assistant director of global health and assistant professor of the university’s Center for Medical Humanities and Ethics.

Health Confianza targets 22 ZIP codes on the south, west and east sides of San Antonio that, based on available data, had the highest COVID rates, hospitalizations and deaths and the lowest vaccination rates as of June 2021. The team is collaborating with partners to increase vaccinations and improve community members’ understanding of the pandemic.

“Our job is not to tell people what to do,” Dr. Rosenfeld said. “Instead, we are helping people gain access to trustworthy, reliable information that is scientifically accurate, which empowers them to make the best decisions for themselves and for their families.”

The project team views the pandemic as a launching pad into addressing broader health literacy issues such as, for example, cancer prevention through screenings. The strategy is multilayered, featuring:

• Training for health care workers to improve interpersonal communication, ensuring that conversations are effective, respectful, and culturally and linguistically appropriate.
• Community health education and outreach to help people identify fact from fiction, help them seek services that are close to them, and increase their reliance on trustworthy media and social media sources of information.
• Organizational health literacy to help nonprofit and for-profit leaders think about policies and systems they have in place and how those promote health and health literacy among employees and the communities they serve.

“Our goal is to train everyone — health care providers, faith leaders, school leaders, students — to acknowledge people’s perspectives and beliefs,” said Mia Vento, Health Confianza project manager. “We don’t have to agree with what everyone says, but we should at least acknowledge it and recognize that others have valid ways of thinking and believing. Their cultural and normative values are real. With that understanding, we can help people navigate within the system to improve health and well-being.”

Rebuilding trust

The 22 ZIP codes encompass 600,000 people in Bexar County, including groups that have been disenfranchised from health care and information.

“Confianza is confidence, it’s trust, it’s understanding, so Health Confianza is about rebuilding trust and repairing the broken relationship a lot of people have with the health care system,” Vento said. “It’s also about building confidence in the knowledge they have and the choices they’re making.”

Vento said the team has helped nearly 8,000 people in the past few months through vaccine clinics, training and town halls.

UT Health San Antonio is designing and implementing the Health Confianza intervention strategies, training content, messaging, a website and social media presence. The University of Texas at San Antonio, a key collaborator, is designing evaluation strategy to demonstrate the impact of all these projects. Final impacts are expected to be shared in the summer or fall of 2023.

Partners

UT Health San Antonio is designing and implementing the Health Confianza intervention strategies, training content, messaging, a website and social media presence. The University of Texas at San Antonio, a key collaborator, is designing evaluation strategy to demonstrate the impact of all these projects. Final impacts are expected to be shared in the summer or fall of 2023.

Ruth Berggren, MD, professor of medicine and director of the Center for Medical Humanities and Ethics at UT Health San Antonio, and Melanie Stone, also of the humanities and ethics center, are co-investigators. Adelita Cantu, PhD, RN, of the UT Health San Antonio School of Nursing, is a faculty adviser. Consultative support is also provided by Joel Tsevat, MD, and the Center for Research to Advance Community Health at UT Health San Antonio.

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services awarded 72 such grants across the nation. San Antonio is the only Texas city, apart from Dallas, that received the funding. “We are proud to be one of the few here in Texas implementing this program,” Dr. Rosenfeld said.