Washington, Feb. 8 – The Center for Advancing Health is taking its news service mobile, increasing the availability of information that Americans can use to get the best possible health care.

The John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, the nation’s leading journalism funder, is helping the center’s Health Behavior News Service digitize its news for mobile access and revamp its website, with a $150,000 grant. 

Being a “prepared patient” can make a life-or-death difference to Americans as they try to find good health care and make the most of it, whether arranging routine tests and treatments, managing chronic disease or responding to a devastating diagnosis. Information is particularly important to the estimated 50 million uninsured Americans and the 48 percent who report they are scrimping on health care due to costs.

While resources have emerged to provide people with health information, much of this information is hard to find and often biased by advertising, product promotion and conflict of interest.

“Most of us want only the information we need when we really need it. Support from Knight Foundation will enable the center to tailor and target dissemination of the information it produces to provide the right health information at the right time to help people make informed decisions,” said Jessie Gruman, the center’s president.

“We hope the news service can reach more people directly with facts that can save lives and help people make informed decisions about their health care,” said Eric Newton, senior adviser to the president of Knight Foundation.

About the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation

Knight Foundation supports transformational ideas that promote quality journalism, advance media innovation, engage communities and foster the arts. We believe that democracy thrives when people and communities are informed and engaged. More at KnightFoundation.org.

About the Center for Advancing Health

The Center for Advancing Health, a nonprofit based in Washington, conducts research, communicates findings and advocates for policies that support everyone’s ability to benefit from advances in health science. The Health Behavior News Service, a program of the center, creates news stories on the latest findings from peer-reviewed research journals and disseminates them worldwide to subscribed journalists. The service covers both new studies and systematic reviews of studies. Its goal is to present emerging health sciences evidence for audiences to use to make informed choices about health and health care.

Contacts:

Andrew Sherry, vice president/communications at Knight Foundation, [email protected], 305-908-2677

David Torresen, vice president, finance and operations at Center for Advancing Health, [email protected], 202-387-2829