The Illinois Cooperative Curriculum in Sleep Education aims to educate health care providers and their patients in the medical importance of sleep and sleep disorders. A large scale curriculum in sleep education, which is intended as a model for small and large medical centers and patient communities nationally, will be designed, implemented, and evaluated. The curriculum represents an effort to promote sleep education and health in traditionally medically under-represented groups. The goals are five-fold: 1) to foster in current and future health care providers and educators at the University of Illinois at Chicago medical community the knowledge of the effects of sleep habits and sleep on the health of their patients, and to provide the opportunity to become knowledgeable in the identification and treatment of prevalent morbid and potentially life threatening sleep disorders; 2) to promote understanding among current and future patients in this community of how sleep and sleep disorders may affect their daily health and well-being, so that they may be better able to seek and participate in optimal medical care regarding sleep; 3) to serve as a comprehensive and flexible national curriculum model in medical education and self-assessment; 4) to export this curriculum via the World Wide Web; videotaped and printed student, patient, and educator teaching sessions; and community and continuing education conferences; and 5) to apply ongoing sleep research to the cardiovascular and neurocognitive health of the patient community and to ongoing educational efforts.
