Health literacy education for rural health professionals: shifting perspectives

Abstract

Health literacy is a major issue for improving health outcomes of clients. In rural Victoria, Australia, the Gippsland Health Literacy Project (GHLP) educated local health services staff about health literacy and provided tools and techniques for health literacy implementation in services. This paper reports the outcomes of this project. Participants' change in knowledge was measured through pre- and post-project surveys and interviews. Descriptive analysis of survey data and analysis of interviews using qualitative description enabled exploration of individual and organisational shifts in health literacy perspectives. Healthcare professionals' knowledge of health literacy has improved as a result of the health literacy education. Health service organisations are also taking greater responsibility for health literacy responsiveness in their services. Systematic changes to policy and procedures that support health literacy are required. Although health literacy education provides more accessible health care for consumers, where projects had executive-level support the changes implemented were more likely to be successful and sustainable. Low health literacy is a strong predictor of health status and it is important for health organisations to ensure they provide health care and information in a way that can be understood, interpreted and acted on by all clients, regardless of their health literacy levels. This paper presents findings on staff training and resources that can effectively support staff to improve health literacy practices. Addressing health literacy issues appears to result in more accessible health care for consumers. Executive support and health literacy champions are key requirements to successfully address health literacy issues.

Factors influencing implementation of organizational health literacy: a realist review

“…The systems lens proved beneficial to facilitate analysis of the data as continuous, without an endpoint. Past studies have taken a linear approach to OHL operationalization (Finlay et al, 2018), but the expert panel endorsed the usefulness of a systems lens to understand the implementation of OHL, without a set endpoint. The realist method was useful to analyze OHL as a tangible way of describing a complex system and is able to tackle nonlinear data in a way that other methods cannot (Shearn et al, 2017;Emmel et al, 2018;Dalkin et al, 2018).…”

“…As a system issue, it is prudent to take a system-based approach to understand the mechanisms and impact of OHL interventions (Australian Commission on Safety and Quality in Health Care, 2013;Naccarella et al, 2016). OHL interventions can be multifaceted and benefit from reference to a larger guiding framework or strategy (Finlay et al, 2018). Frameworks to operationalize OHL (Department of Health and Human Services, 2017, Dodson et al, 2014, Dewalt et al, 2010, Tennessee Charitable Care Network, 2017, Australian Commission on Safety and Quality in Health Care, 2014, Brach et al, 2012 outline what is required for an organization to become health literate, but there is little detail on the implementation process (Berkman et al, 2011;Koh et al, 2013b;Ross et al, 2009).…”

“…OHL interventions have typically been implemented using linear or sequential steps, which may not be the most useful method within complex systems (Finlay et al, 2018). Complexity theory, organizational change theory and systems theory support the use of nonlinear approaches because of the nature of feedback loops impacting on these settings (Styhre, 2002;Tenbensel, 2013), so consideration of a nonlinear approach to implementation of OHL is warranted.…”

Estimating the Economic Burden of Low Health Literacy in the Blacktown Community in Sydney, Australia: A Population-Based Study

“…Those delivering health care services face increased stress and professional responsibilities due to the increased demand for health care that LHL levels produce. Research has shown that the turnover rate of health care providers is often high in areas with significant rates of LHL among community members [47]. In this study, we have estimated the extra economic cost of higher rates of staff turnover for nurses, allied health professionals, and other medical staff members (a category that includes staff not classified as nurses, doctors, or other specialists).…”

Fostering Health Literacy Responsiveness in a Remote Primary Health Care Setting: A Pilot Study

“…Published evaluations of interventions designed to improve organisational health literacy responsiveness are predominantly limited to tertiary care settings and/or metropolitan areas, so their applicability to rural healthcare contexts where NCD prevalence tends to be higher is uncertain [35,36,39,40]. Of the few studies that have been conducted in primary care settings, many are limited to community pharmacies, which represent only a limited spectrum of all primary healthcare organisations [41,42].…”