HIT'M: ALF Launches New Training Manual for Health Professionals

American Liver Foundation
Tuesday, 27 May 2003

HIT'M - Hepatitis Integration Training Manual

Agencies who conduct training by July 2003 will receive free educational materials. Contact Jackie Spencer for more information...

The American Liver Foundation (ALF) has recently released its innovative education program HIT'M - The Hepatitis Integration Training Manual. HIT'M is a comprehensive guide that provides hepatitis C education to health professionals in the areas of HIV/AIDS, sexually transmitted disease, harm reduction and/or drug treatment professionals. The manual, designed for use by a variety of professionals and lay people, even those who have limited knowledge about hepatitis C, instructs how to best integrate hepatitis C information into their work as prevention/education specialists, outreach workers or clinicians.

Health care professionals are often unaware of the current information concerning transmission and prevention of hepatitis C. For that reason, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's National Hepatitis C Prevention Strategy is focused on integrating prevention activities into existing health care settings. It is particularly important to integrate hepatitis C education into HIV/AIDS and drug prevention programs, as injection drug users are at highest risk for infection with hepatitis C and receive services from these programs. HIT'M provides health professionals with the tools and resources necessary to add important, life-saving messages about the disease into their work with high risk clients.

The manual prepares trainers to conduct a three-hour "Integrating Hepatitis C" training session with counselors, case managers, outreach workers, educators, and drug treatment providers whose clients are at risk of being infected with the virus. HIT'M contains trainer notes, session outlines and presentation tips, slide shows, and other hepatitis resources. ALF will conduct an evaluation of the Hepatitis Integration Training Manual to determine its usefulness to trainers and to assess its effectiveness in imparting education about hepatitis C. Up to 35 agencies and organizations have been asked to participate in the evaluation process.

There are over 4 million Americans who have been infected with hepatitis C. At the recent National Institutes of Health (NIH) Consensus Development Conference on the Management of Hepatitis C, it was stated that "hepatitis C awareness must be increased among the general public and within the medical community." HIT'M is the most recent of ALF's many programs designed to raise much-needed awareness of the disease.

Requests for HIT'M have been so great that the first printing will be exhausted by December 2002 and a second printing is already in progress. To request a copy, or for more information, contact Jackie Spencer at 1.800.GO.LIVER.

For more information, or to contact American Liver Foundation, see their website at: www.liverfoundation.org