Lexington, KY - Beginning on Thursday, March 22, Lexington is hosting simultaneously a pair of conferences that have everything to do with the quality of our lives, as well as the future of our local and regional economy.
The 3rd Annual Kentucky Health Literacy Summit and the 5th Annual Bluegrass Local Food Summit both get underway on the 22nd, the former a two-day conference housed at the Griffin Gate Marriott Resort and Spa, the latter scheduled for March 22-24 at Crestwood Christian Church and Good Foods Coop.
Hosted by the University of Kentucky, the Health Literacy Summit is designed to help professionals, including librarians, UK Cooperative Extension Service agents and those who work in health-care fields, acquire the tools they need to help the rest of us increase our health literacy, defined by the Institute of Medicine as “one’s ability to obtain and understand basic health-related information from medical diagnosis to insurance claims.”
Who among us doesn’t need to sharpen these skills? By some estimates, fewer than half of all Americans are “health literate.” Those with low health literacy tend to have poor medical outcomes.
Dr. Christina Cordero will deliver a keynote address entitled “What did the doctor say? Advancing health literacy through Joint Commission Standards and Initiatives.”
Cordero is an associate project director in the Department of Standards and Survey Methods, Division of Healthcare Quality Evaluation at The Joint Commission.
Featured topics and speakers include:
• Becoming a Health Literate Organization: Tools You Can Use from DHHS and Beyond, by speaker Cindy Brach, senior health policy researcher at the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality
• Engaging Rural News Media in Improving Rural Health, by speaker Al Cross, director of the UK Institute for Rural Journalism and Community Issues
• Using your Health Literacy Toolkit and Plain Language in a Nutshell, by speaker Audrey Riffenburg, president of Plain Language Works, LLC
• Health Literacy 101 and Usability Workshop, by speaker Michael Villaire, adjunct faculty at the Brandman University School of Nursing and Health Professionals
• Teach-Back: Making it Efficient, Effective and Normal, by speaker Kathryn Anderson, programs manager at Sage Words Health Communications
• Social Media, by speaker Dana Carpenter, University of Louisville Office of Health Promotion
• Electronic Health Records and Health Literacy Panel, by speaker Polly Mullins Bentley, deputy executive director of the Governor’s Office of Electronic Health Information.
Registration is $90 with a special rate of $25 for students. Participants can preregister online at www.cecentral.com/live/3748/fees. Onsite registration begins at 9 a.m. March 22, and the conference starts at 11 a.m.
The event is a partnership of more than 35 organizations in Kentucky including Humana and UK’s School of Human Environmental Sciences in the College of Agriculture, College of Communications, College of Medicine and UK HealthCare, as well as Western Kentucky University.
For more information, visit Health Literacy Kentucky’s website, http://www.healthliteracyky.org.
Food Summit
Across town, in the meantime, the Bluegrass Local Food Summit, organized by community garden crusader Jim Embry, will hear from featured speaker Mark Winne, a food policy expert and author of Food Rebels: Fighting Back Industrial Agriculture and Closing the Food Gap: Resetting the Table in the Land of Plenty which became the theme of this annual local food summit.
“These interactions with Mark are appropriate for anyone who is interested in or involved with any organized effort to influence local and state food, agriculture, or nutrition policy,” said Embry. “In addition, these sessions will provide opportunities to learn more about policy, projects and partnerships that make up local food systems, to network with individuals on the cutting edge of local and state food policy issues and to develop strategies for the development of a state food policy council and local councils throughout the state.”
Other invited summit speakers include:
• Mrs. Jane Beshear, First Lady of Kentucky;
• Commissioner Comer of the Kentucky Department of Agriculture, sharing his vision for food and agriculture in Kentucky;
• Mayor Greg Fischer of Louisville, who will discuss building Louisville’s local food economy;
• Mayor Connelly of Berea will share the Berea Food Sustainability Strategic Plan;
• Tammy Zborel with the Sustainable Project National League of Cities;
• Lenny Stoltz with the Bluegrass Area Development District, who will speak about the importance of regional planning in building the local food system;
• Marydale Debor of Connecticut, who has led the movement in New England to transform the food served in hospitals; and
• Joe Blue with the Hopkins County Jail garden and culinary program.
Other Summit activities include a school garden workshop, a youth sustainability gathering, and sustainable living workshops.
The Summit, to be held at the Crestwood Christian Church from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. onMarch 22-24, costs $45 per day and will conclude with a free film screening of the movie, Farmageddon, on March 27 at 6 p.m. at the Lexington Central Library Theater.
The Bluegrass Local Food Summit is co-sponsored by such groups as the Bluegrass Community Foundation, Farm Service Bureau, Good Foods Market and Café, Employment Solutions, Sustainable Communities Network, Community Ventures Corporation, Lexington Farmer’s Market and others.
For more information, contact Jim Embry at embryjim@gmail.com or by calling (859)270-3699. Online registration for the summit is available at sustainlex.org.