Grant: Intl Collaborative Indigenous Health Res Partnership Chronic Dis-full appl'n

Cardiovascular disease (CVD) such as heart attacks and strokes are important causes of illness and death among Indigenous people in Australia, Canada and NZ. Patients and families play a major role in managing heart disease and stroke. To do this well people must be able to access, understand and act on information for health. This is called health literacy (HL). We will work with Indigenous primary care services to develop and implement a programme with patients and families that will increase knowledge of medications, increase confidence and ability to self-manage CVD, and increase empowerment in interactions with health workers. The programme will also increase health workers knowledge of health literacy and their skills for working with people with high health literacy needs. Five health provider sites in Australia, Canada, and NZ will participate with 100 patients and families at each site. We will provide participants with the HL programme and then assess the effect of the intervention. We will also develop case studies at each site to understand the intervention and its effects in the organisational, systemic and policy environment. The study will reduce CVD burden of disease and inequalities by improving patient and family CVD HL, self-management of CVD literacy, and confidence interacting with health professionals. These skills may be translated into other health areas. The impact of this intervention on the health services will also be assessed. Staff involved will develop knowledge and skills relating to health literacy and these will be transferable. Workforce development and research capacity development are key components of the study. The results of the study will be useful to service providers, funders, and policy makers in health and adult literacy fields.