Health literacy and the social determinants of health: a qualitative model from adult learners

Abstract

Health literacy, ‘the personal characteristics and social resources needed for individuals and communities to access, understand, appraise and use information and services to make decisions about health’, is key to improving peoples’ control over modifiable social determinants of health (SDH). This study listened to adult learners to understand their perspectives on gathering, understanding and using information for health. This qualitative project recruited participants from community skills courses to identify relevant ‘health information’ factors. Subsequently different learners put these together to develop a model of their ‘Journey to health’. Twenty-seven participants were recruited; twenty from community health literacy courses and seven from an adult basic literacy and numeracy course. Participants described health as a ‘journey’ starting from an individual's family, ethnicity and culture. Basic (functional) health literacy skills were needed to gather and understand information. More complex interactive health literacy skills were needed to evaluate the importance and relevance of information in context, and make health decisions. Critical health literacy skills could be used to adapt negative external factors that might inhibit health-promotion. Our model is an iterative linear one moving from ethnicity, community and culture, through lifestyle, to health, with learning revisited in the context of different sources of support. It builds on existing models by highlighting the importance of SDH in the translation of new health knowledge into healthy behaviours, and the importance of health literacy in enabling people to overcome barriers to health.

The Roles of Social Support and Health Literacy in Self‐Management Among Patients With Chronic Kidney Disease

“…Both Naranjo, Mulvaney, McGrath, Garnero, and Hood () and Fisher and colleagues () adopted a social‐ecological approach and proposed that healthcare providers might shift the focus of self‐management enhancement programs from individuals to families or the social context. Thus, patients might modify their daily activities to ensure that they have a supportive environment, good social network, and good support sources to achieve their disease management goals (Ansmann et al., ; Koetsenruijter et al., ; Mansyur, Rustveld, Nash, & Jibaja‐Weiss, ; Rowlands, Shaw, Jaswal, Smith, & Harpham, ). In summary, social support appears to be an essential, modifiable factor for self‐management behaviors, making it a suitable therapeutic target for patients with CKD.…”

Functional Health Literacy among Undergraduate Pharmacy Students: A Cross-Sectional Study from Pakistan

“…1 The quality of health services and healthcare providers may be affected by health literacy levels of individuals. 2 Most of the individuals have difficulty in navigating healthcare options and are unable to understand the information provided by health care professionals regardless of their education and social status. 3 The inability to comprehend health related information by the patient leads to ineffective self-management of their medical problems.…”

Health Literacy for the General Public: Making a Case for Non-Trivial Visualizations

“…A 2007 report estimates that the cost of low health literacy to the U.S. economy was between $106 and $238 billion each year [4]. Advancing health literacy may also lead to more equity and sustainability of changes in public health [6,25].…”