By Felicia Collins, M.D., M.P.H.
UniteNews Guest Writer
April 1 marked the start of National Minority Health Month. This year’s theme is Better Health Through Better Understanding, which focuses on improving health outcomes by providing racial and ethnic minority and American Indian/Alaska Native (AI/AN) communities with culturally and linguistically competent healthcare services, information, and resources.
During this observance, the HHS Office of Minority Health (OMH) will promote events and multilingual resources to help empower patients to ask for what they need and educate providers and community health workers on ways to be more aware of patients’ varying health literacy levels.
You can play an important role in improving health literacy—how individuals find, understand, and use health information to inform their care. This April and beyond, I invite everyone—individuals, community-based organizations, federal, state, and local governments as well as other public and private entities—to learn how health literacy and language access can create healthier outcomes and communities.
I encourage you to visit the OMH National Minority Health Month website (available in English and Spanish) to:
Find and share information and resources related to this year’s theme.
Download shareable graphics and sample messages to use across all social media platforms.
Create your own graphics, backgrounds, and presentations using OMH’s templates.
Participate in critical conversations about health literacy on social media by tagging @MinorityHealth on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram and using the hashtags, #MinorityHealth.
Be sure to attend the following National Minority Health Month events focused on improving the health of racial and ethnic minority and AI/AN communities.
