A Curriculum, Instruction, and Assessment (CIA) Framework for Health Literacy Education (HLE) in Medical and Health Professions Schools

Abstract

There is increasing need to implement Health Literacy Education (HLE) as essential curriculum content in medical and health professions schools, supported by skill-based instructional strategies and authentic assessments. This paper reviews two decades of historical progress in health literacy and advances a new conceptual model to organize Curriculum, Instruction, and Assessment (CIA) themes for Health Literacy Education (HLE). Three themes are integrated into the Health Literacy Education (HLE) curriculum: 1) interprofessional communication in HLE, 2) cultural and linguistic competencies in HLE, and 3) a language typology that informs HLE. Two pedagogical themes are integrated into HLE instruction: 1) skill-based instructional strategies to improve oral communication (n = 7), and skill-based instructional strategies to improve written communication (n = 3). Skill-based instructional strategies to improve oral communication of medical and health professions students includes use of plain language, use of Teach Back or Show Me, encourage patients to ask questions, use medical interpreters and translators, be an active listener, respond with empathy when breaking bad news to patients, and use Chunks and Checks method. Skill-based instructional strategies to improve written communication of medical and health professions students includes write in plain language, evaluate written materials, and use pictures or visual aids to aid patient understanding. Two themes are integrated into HLE assessments: 1) formative assessment, and 2) summative assessment. The paper promotes the Curriculum, Instruction, and Assessment Framework for Health Literacy Education (CIA-HLE) for use by faculty in medical and health professions schools to ensure their students are well prepared to use oral and written communication with their patients as guided by selected research studies and initiatives. To further advance interprofessional collaboration and dialogue across the medical and health professions, a language typology and a knowledge typology are provided as building blocks to health literacy education.

Health Literacy in Orthopedic Surgery: A Systematic Review

“…Ubbes and Njoku proposed a curriculum and framework for teaching and evaluating health literacy education in medical schools. It included written/oral communication strategies and skill-based instruction [35]. It is anticipated that health literacy will continue to be integrated into undergraduate and graduate medical education as social disparities continue to be incompatible with high-quality, value-based health care.…”

Whose Frame of Reference? Constructions of Body Frame Size through a New Genre of Health Literacy Texts That Explore Children’s Frame of Mind and Behavioral Intentions

“…Valid and reliable health information can be shared and vetted via print and electronic resources to augment what is exchanged during interpersonal conversations. A way to ensure that the information can be accessible for the greatest number of people is to use multimodal language approaches (Ubbes & Njoku, 2022) and multimedia approaches (e.g., print and electronic). In a systematic review of 12 empirical studies looking at health literacy in early childhood, Banfai-Csonka and colleagues (2022) found that picture-based messages or story-based messages with illustrations helped to support the development of health literacy when the studies focused on food, nutrition and oral health.…”

Contextual Knowledge Elements Utilization in 3D CAD Model Manipulation from the Practicing Engineers Perspectives

“…The cognitive constructivism theory emphasizes the importance on the mental processes people utilize in order sense of their surroundings (Kaufman, 2018;Amineh and Asl, 2015). Declarative knowledge, procedural knowledge, and contextual knowledge are the three categories of knowledge existed in the field of education (Ubbes and Njoku, 2022;Ubbes, 2008;Tennyson and Breuer, 2002. In this study, contextual knowledge was investigated based on the difficulty described in the preceding section. According to Tennyson and Breuer (2002), contextual knowledge is an individual's understanding of how to apply specific concepts, rules, and principles in the context of knowing why, when, and where the knowledge should be applied to fulfil a specific task.…”