Vitamin D educational materials needed

People need to learn about vitamin D

• UK survey of vitamin D knowledge of midwives - 2011

• Just 15 minutes of education improved vitamin D compliance – Mar 2012

• 28 % of dark skinned not heard of vitamin D and 54 % not know symptoms – Jan 2012

• Very poor knowledge of vitamin D deficiency, even after diagnosis in Kuwait - March 2012 highlights - only:

  • Only 28% of participants were aware of their condition,
  • Only 12% of the participants knew that the level of vitamin D dropped again after stopping medication.
  • Only 29% knew the relation between vitamin D and other diseases.

Information about vitamin D is changing rapidly

• 4,000+ peer-reviewed vitamin D paper expected in 2012

• A static publication on vitamin D becomes somewhat obsolete in a year

• The VitaminDWiki can automatically bubble vitamin D updates to custom publications

  • Example of vitamin D news propagation:
  •       Bone Fracture ==> Senior Persuade English ==> Senior Persuade Spanish ==> Senior Persuade Peru (local RDA)

  Guess: 100-500 documents which could be automatically managed with the

  TikiWiki configuration management software which VitaminDWiki is based on

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Who:

• Seniors

• Athletes

• Those in pain

• Dark skinned

• Have a particular disease

• Avoding a particular disease

• Pregnant

• Mothers concerned about children

• Children of seniors

• Obese

• Nursing home staff

Why:

• Introduction – individual

• Persuation – individual

• Persuation – medical or govt group

• Instruction: how & when to take vitamin D

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How Long:

• Concise < 2 page

• Detailed 2-9 pages

• Very detailed > 10 pages

• Book length (chapters can be updated individually)

What form:

• Text and graphics

• Script and optional graphics for a speech

• Video

What language

• English, Spanish, German, Japanese, Chinese, etc.
  • Note: Google provides rough translation to 55 languages

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Which country/region

• Recommendations, fortification, use of sunscreen, etc. vary by country/region

Major differences between even English speaking countries

US, Australia, New Zealand, Canada, UK, South Africa, etc,

'Tall' countries have a huge change in sunlight: US (Hawaii ==>Alaska), Australia, China

    so may need different materials within the country

What level of education

• < 7th grade or English as a second language

• 7-12th grade

• Some university

• Graduate – non medical

• Graduate – medical

What writing style

• Factual

• Story (easier to remember)

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