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Past Project: Applying Learning Styles and Health Literacy to Precision Medicine

Background

Evidence regarding the effect of genetic variations on health is evolving at a rate that outpaces traditional educational and decision support approaches to knowledge dissemination. The goal of this project, funded by the Institute of Museum and Library Services, was to develop a reusable model for delivering patient-specific, consumer-friendly pharmacogenetics information. In collaboration with Vanderbilt’s My Cancer Genome team, we evaluated the use of health literacy and learning style principles to educate cancer patients and caregivers about precision medicine.

Summary

Past ProjectsWe adapted professional-level information about tumor mutations from the My Cancer Genome website into a lay-level format. We also created short videos, called knowledge pearls, to help explain the meaning of complex genetic and cancer precision medicine terms. We demonstrated through two randomized controlled trials that incorporating health literacy and learning style principles when developing consumer information about precision medicine facilitates understanding of the material and results in greater satisfaction (Giuse et al., 2016; Kusnoor et al., 2016).

The knowledge pearls are available for public use and educational purposes.

Publications/Presentations

  • Cronin RM, Natarajan K, Koonce TY, Tirhi S, Fowler, S. Beyond the EHR – using participants to enhance the EHR with participant provided information. American Medical Informatics Association 2019 Informatics Summit, March 28, 2019.