Developing health education materials for inner-city low literacy parents

The question of identifying and treating childhood illness confronts all new parents. Misconceptions often lead parents to manage illnesses in their young children inappropriately through overly aggressive treatment or insufficient attention. This responsibility is especially challenging for low-income new parents who lack the literacy levels needed to understand and use much of the existing health education literature and who are without access to health facilities and providers. In response to a perceived need for health information directed at low-income, low-literacy parents, students from the University of California at Los Angeles School of Public Health created an easy-to-use reference booklet called "A Parent's Guide: When Your Child Is Sick." The booklet's aim is to assist parents in treating common childhood illness and identifying more serious diseases requiring medical attention. A comprehensive and manageable amount of information is provided in the booklet. Behaviors and issues covered include (a) recognition of symptoms, (b) actions that could be taken in the home, (c) medicines that could be administered, and (d) recommendations on how persistent problems might be handled.