News Release

CHAPEL HILL – The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill has developed an innovative distance-learning program to teach North Carolina’s health professionals the Spanish language skills they need to better serve the state’s rapidly growing Latino patient population.

Many health-care facilities across North Carolina do not have enough doctors, nurses and other professionals who speak Spanish. And demand for interpreters is skyrocketing.

The UNC program – believed to be the nation’s first of its kind – aims to help fill those gaps and overcome the obstacles preventing effective communication between Latinos and health-care providers.

"¡A su salud! Spanish for Health Professionals" combines multi-media interactive exercises, written text and Web-based resources with a compelling television-style drama to teach Spanish language and culture at an intermediate level. The drama is set in a Latino-run health center, where actors with a variety of accents encounter real-life health situations.

"¡A su salud!" ("To Your Health!") meets the needs of a wide range of learning styles and schedules, going far beyond what a textbook can offer. The program targets working professionals in hospitals, community clinics and private practice, as well as college students in health-related programs.

Chancellor James Moeser today (Oct. 6) convened a group of more than 65 state health, education and university leaders at UNC Hospitals to learn about the program. Speakers included Andrea Bazan-Manson, executive director of El Pueblo Inc., a statewide policy and advocacy group. Discussions focused on making the state’s health-care community aware of "¡A su salud!" The program and course materials, developed by an interdisciplinary team of UNC faculty and staff, are designed for use in an instructor-led setting, either on site at health-care or campus facilities, or via distance learning.

"This Spanish-language program is an excellent example of the university’s sharp focus on seeking solutions to the pressing issues facing North Carolinians," Moeser said. "I am pleased with the

potential for this new course to help make a positive difference in the quality of care available to Latino patients in our state."

"¡A su salud!" grew out of a 1999 bus tour that faculty and staff serving on a campus education committee took to area health and human services agencies. Leaders of those agencies identified Spanish language skills as critical for college students seeking internships or rotations at their sites.

The resulting UNC program also helps address recommendations in "NC Latino Health 2003," a report card produced by the Latino Health Task Force and the N.C. Institute of Medicine in collaboration with El Pueblo Inc. The report called for producing more Spanish-speaking health-care professionals. UNC faculty and staff contributed to the task force’s work.

UNC already uses "¡A su salud!" with residential and distance education students in its five health science schools – dentistry, medicine, nursing, pharmacy and public health – and the School of Social Work. The N.C. Institute of Public Health in the School of Public Health offers the course for continuing education credit nationwide. Other campuses offering the program include the universities of Tennessee, Pennsylvania and Virginia, Rutgers University, Holy Cross College and Durham Technical Community College. Durham Tech will hold a training workshop for faculty across the N.C. Community College system on Oct. 30.

Yale University Press will publish the final materials for the course later this fall as part of a national distribution agreement with UNC. Earlier this month, UNC was one of four U.S. institutions selected to receive a WCET Outstanding Work award from a cooperative advancing the effective use of technology in higher education. The Western Cooperative for Educational Telecommunications will honor UNC for "¡A su salud!" in San Antonio Nov. 11-14.

UNC started "¡A su salud!" with a $470,000 grant from the Fund for the Improvement of Postsecondary Education (FIPSE) in the U.S. Department of Education. UNC invested another $500,000 in state-appropriated distance education funds to complete the intermediate course. Now, UNC is working to identify more funding to develop a companion course for health-care professionals and students who are beginners to the Spanish language.

"¡A su salud!" has been developed with administrative support from UNC’s Office of the Provost and the Office of Distance Education and E-learning Policy, part of the William and Ida Friday Center for Continuing Education.

For more information, contact Claire Lorch, project director, (919) 962-4011, clorch@email.unc.edu. More information is at http://salud.unc.edu/ and http://yalepress.yale.edu/yupbooks/salud/.

- 30 -

UNC contacts Mike McFarland, (919) 962-8593, or Karen Moon, broadcast, (919) 962-8595