HealthStart

HealthStart is a program that was developed by a local family practice resident in collaboration with the C. Everett Koop Institute. Modelled upon Partners in Health Education (another Koop Institute program), HealthStart brings medical residents into area schools to teach health education and prevention to students, promoting community oriented primary care.

Through the program, residents develop teaching competence through a system of teacher training, curriculum development, teaching, and feedback, learning to utilize existing community, social services, and public health prevention resources. At the same time, students in the participating schools learn about safety, nutrition, fitness, and drug, alcohol and tobacco prevention at a vital time in their development. It is hoped that this program will have a substantial effect on long term clinical outcomes in these students.

Residents from primary care specialities and psychiatry use blocks from their outpatient rotations and electives, and receive elective credit for their participation in the program. The Partners in Health Education Program has

met with great success in teaching health messages to children, and teaching communications and health education teaching skills to medical students, and HealthStart is expected to meet with similar success. In addition to improving teaching skills, HealthStart also allows residents to explore their creative side when designing lesson plans. Fall Down Brown TM , a cartoon character created by a resident, is used to teach health education to third graders in Littleton, NH. The Koop Institute is developing online versions of the adventures of Fall Down Brown, which are available in the "Resources" section of this web site.

HealthStart's teaching efforts are continuing in collaboration with the efforts of the New Hampshire/Dartmouth Family Practice Residency program, the Littleton Community Health Center, and the Littleton schools. The Koop Institute will support HealthStart in a variety of areas, including providing lesson plans, tutoring in communications and teaching skills, and the Center for Educational Outcomes, another Koop Institute program, is evaluating the results of the pilot program.