Tailored Educational Approaches for Consumer Health

The Consumer Health Education Institute
(CHEDI)

Tailored Educational Approaches for Consumer Health (TEACH)

Our flagship project, Tailored Educational Approaches for Consumer Health (TEACH), currently underway, focuses on the use of market segmentation to differentiate information consumers into distinct groups based on specific characteristics and preferences that impact the optimal delivery of health education materials.  Groups will be differentiated based on characteristics such as learning style, age, cultural background, or preferences such as desired role in decision-making, preferred communication channels, or comprehensiveness of information provided.  These groups can then be described in terms of their “educational requirements”, used in order to evaluate the suitability of existing educational materials or to help drive the development of new, more appropriate materials.   This novel approach will be explored using data on a statewide sample of Virginia adults, and tested in small subsets of patients who receive their care at the University of Virginia.