The role of community development in building critical health literacy

Sykes, Susie; Wills, Jane; Popple, Keith

doi:10.1093/cdj/bsx019

Cited by 11 publications

(18 citation statements)

References 12 publications

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“…These topics are connected to the concept of critical health literacy (CHL). CHL was established as part of general HL by Nutbeam [36] and covers people's knowledge and abilities to gain and use health information in the context of one's life in order to exert greater control over one's health and well-being [37][38][39][40][41]. Our results align with this concept, firstly because they foreground the essential notion of keeping control over one's health.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 68%

Health Literacy in the Everyday Lives of Older Adults in Greece, Hungary, and the Netherlands

Wit

Karnaki

Dalma

et al. 2020

IJERPH

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Health literacy (HL) encompasses someone’s knowledge and abilities to access and use health information in order to make appropriate health decisions in life. HL is particularly valuable in later life when health challenges grow. An individual’s HL is typically considered a fixed and skills-based characteristic, without taking into account how these are situated in the context of everyday life. Also, lay perspectives on health literacy are relatively scarce. Therefore, the aim of this article is to explore the context-specific perspectives of older adults and health professionals on HL in later life in Greece, Hungary, and the Netherlands. We adopted a qualitative methodology and conducted 12 focus groups: seven with 50 older adults and five with 30 health professionals to gain insight into individual perspectives on HL as situated in the health care and everyday life contexts. An informed grounded theory approach was used in analyzing the data. The results are structured in three themes: (1) interactions with health professionals, (2) perceived quality of the health care system, and (3) managing health in the context of everyday life. An overarching finding is that, for older adults, HL reflects the demands placed on them when managing their health. In the experience of older adults, these demands are placed upon them by healthcare professionals, the healthcare system, as well as their everyday lives. Our findings underscore the importance of Critical Health Literacy (CHL) as that concept foregrounds that HL is context specific. Also, CHL has been argued to be a community characteristic, which is why we call for community-based approaches to improve HL.

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 68%

Health Literacy in the Everyday Lives of Older Adults in Greece, Hungary, and the Netherlands

Wit

Karnaki

Dalma

et al. 2020

IJERPH

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“…When it comes to the settings in which health literacy has been used, Pleasant et al (9) talk about 'a tale of two health literacies', one grounded in a clinical setting and focusing on individual information management skills, that is, literacy and numeracy, and one grounded within a public health setting and focusing on individual and community empowerment (e.g. 10,11). When operationalising health literacy, both have adopted skills-based measures, focusing on aspects of functional and interactive health literacy (12,13), despite calls for multidimensional measures within public health (14).…”

Section: Current Debates In Health Literacymentioning

confidence: 99%

Re-thinking health literacy: using a capabilities approach perspective towards realising social justice goals

Pithara

2019

Glob Health Promot

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Health literacy has gained popularity as a useful concept to promote and protect health. Even though health literacy research has been prolific it has also been fragmented, facing challenges in achieving its empowerment and social justice-related aims. Crucial limitations make the application of its principles to the health of vulnerable and underrepresented groups problematic, even though these groups are disproportionately affected by ill health. Efforts to refine and make the concept more relevant have tended to expand health literacy models and situate health literacy ‘in context’ to reflect environmental and social factors shaping health literacy. Context-related factors however, have not been consistently embedded in operationalisation and measurement efforts. This paper argues for health literacy to be re-conceptualised through a capabilities approach lens. It proposes that the capabilities approach can uniquely address the conceptual and methodological criticisms applied to health literacy, whilst encompassing its critical conceptual understandings of health. The advantage of this approach over and above other developments in health literacy theory and practice is its focus on both people’s opportunities or freedoms to achieve desired health-related aims, and their ability to do so. It enables shifting the focus away from health literacy as individual skills and competencies and towards the enabling or inhibiting factors shaping health literacy. A participatory approach is seen as essential for realising this conceptual shift.

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“…Promoting health literacy plays a crucial role on building this capacity by enabling individuals and communities to respond to policies and actions that affect their health and well-being (McCormack, et al, 2017;Sykes, et al, 2017).…”

Section: Celebrating the Health Literacy Skills Of Parents: A Photovomentioning

confidence: 99%

“…This approach builds upon already existing competencies and strengths that enable citizens to understand the dynamics of the social determinants of health (Cameron and Wasacase, 2017). Promoting health literacy plays a crucial role on building this capacity by enabling individuals and communities to respond to policies and actions that affect their health and well-being (McCormack et al, 2017; Sykes et al, 2018).…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Celebrating the health literacy skills of parents: A photovoice study

2018

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Parents play a vital role in promoting children's health. The parental health literacy skills are important since the decisions they make can have an impact on other family members' health and well-being. Using an assets-based approach, this project aimed to explore the skills parents use to communicate health messages with their children and how they manage their family's health. Six adult parents of children aged 0-16 years old took part in this photovoice study. The thematic analysis suggests that tapping into the creativity of parents through the gamification of health messages and encouraging children's independence are effective ways to promote healthy behaviors. Trusting their instincts and developing good relationships with healthcare providers were also seen as important. However, there is still a need to improve confidence and skills, particularly on how to critically appraise information, especially in this digital age where sources of information are vast and conflicting messages could arise.

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The role of community development in building critical health literacy

Cited by 11 publications

References 12 publications

Health Literacy in the Everyday Lives of Older Adults in Greece, Hungary, and the Netherlands

Health Literacy in the Everyday Lives of Older Adults in Greece, Hungary, and the Netherlands

Re-thinking health literacy: using a capabilities approach perspective towards realising social justice goals

Celebrating the health literacy skills of parents: A photovoice study

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