Taking a Holistic Take a look at Properly-Being and Well being Literacy

Earlier than we start, let’s get one factor out of the way in which:

“It’s pronounced KASS-A BOY, like ‘cowboy,’” says Dr. Cassoobhoy.

Cassoobhoy, 48, is certainly a cowboy of types, wrangling data after which dishing out it in accessible methods. As On a regular basis Well being’s chief medical editor and vice chairman of medical affairs, that’s precisely what she’ll be doing frequently — alongside together with her work as a training board-certified internist, and a mom of a 17-year-old daughter and 14-year-old son.

She was destined to be a physician. Her father, Raz Moosajee, MD, was a pediatrician and Air Drive Lieutenant Colonel in Warner Robins, Georgia, the place she grew up.

“Loads of the children I performed with have been my dad’s sufferers,” says Cassoobhoy, a former senior medical director at WebMD and senior medical correspondent at Medscape. “As I received into highschool, I spotted that I wished to work immediately with folks. Drugs was a really pure path for me to pursue.”

In school at Emory College, she took a sociology of well being and sickness class, and a lightbulb went off. She found that what she actually wished to do was take a look at well being as greater than sickness and the medical science; she was concerned with a holistic strategy, incorporating the angle of people and their communities. She attended medical faculty at Emory Faculty of Drugs, and obtained a grasp's diploma in public well being at Emory's Rollins Faculty of Public Well being. After about 10 years of medical apply, she started to shift her focus to well being schooling and methods to influence well being past the one-on-one patient-doctor go to.

Cassoobhoy is presently a member of the Emory Faculty of Drugs Alumni Board and is on the board of administrators on the Clarkston Group Well being Middle (CCHC) in Georgia, a nonprofit clinic for people with out ample medical health insurance, a lot of whom are latest immigrants. She’s additionally an advisor for the Group Well being Promoters Program on the Refugee Girls’s Community, which brings collectively ladies from totally different backgrounds and trains them to impart well being schooling to their communities.

One of many issues she’s captivated with is well being literacy — empowering folks to search out the data they want, after which perceive and use it.

“A lot is about how do you make the well being data related to the neighborhood, how do you speak in a manner that's participating and inclusive? How do you construct belief? Belief is an enormous difficulty proper now.”

"This previous yr, not surprisingly, it’s been all about COVID-19," she says. "It’s necessary as a healthcare supplier and medical editor to acknowledge that it's okay to have questions — for instance, in terms of getting the vaccine. We have to reply no matter questions persons are asking and sofa our data with, 'That is what we all know based mostly on the newest analysis,' explaining the logic behind why we arrived at our suggestions."

At On a regular basis Well being, Cassoobhoy helps to create content material “the place we are able to actually tackle well being literacy. The thought is to have well being data on the market for sufferers and audiences that’s helpful and empowers them to be proactive and make well-informed selections about their well being and healthcare,” she says.

In fact, that’s typically simpler stated than performed. So how do you acknowledge helpful, reliable data and keep away from deceptive or incorrect medical information?

Cassoobhoy, not surprisingly, has some ideas:

Test the date. Every part adjustments so shortly with COVID-19 data, so that you need to know when the piece was printed and up to date to make sure the information is present.

Sources, sources, sources. Who’s writing the piece, and what’s their background? Are you able to test their {qualifications} and schooling? Are they a certified physician or well being skilled? Additionally, make sure to take a look at the web site to ensure it’s legit. If research are cited, make certain you could find the examine immediately. (Most data-driven websites will hyperlink to the journal article.) Be sure to can validate the entire data simply.

Be cautious. Whereas there are lots of folks on social media with compelling and provoking private tales, it's necessary to acknowledge the well being data they share might not be vetted or apply to you.

Confirm. Are you studying one thing that immediately contradicts what you’re discovering on different web sites? That’s an indication that that you must show additional. Respected websites from organizations just like the Facilities for Illness Management and Prevention (CDC), the World Well being Group (WHO), or your state’s division of public well being are dependable sources. So is your individual physician.

Which brings up one other difficulty: Everytime you speak to your physician about something, make sure to write down your questions earlier than you arrive and have somebody come to the appointment with you who can take notes. “I do this with my physician, accountant, and lawyer, so I can assessment it after,” she says. “If that you must make clear something, name again and speak to the physician or nurse.”

That is precisely the type of intel Cassoobhoy is raring to share with On a regular basis Well being readers. “As a doctor, it’s actually necessary to ensure that all of the content material that’s created is medically correct, sensible, and has the suitable tone,” she says. “It’s such a privilege to have the ability to do this. I’m excited, I’m honored, I’m able to go.”