Below is the editorial of a special ossue on health literacy in the journal Health Information and Libraries Journal.
Unfortunately, the eidtorial and papers are not freely accessible so most of us cannot read them.
Paradoxically I have found that papers on health information and library sciences are less likely to be open access than those of biomedical and other disciplines. Have others noted this? Another journal that frequently contains valuable papers is Information Development, but this too is restricted-access.
EDITORIAL
Health literacy and consumer health information
Maria J. Grant PhD#
Health Information and Libraries Journal
First published: 30 March 2023 https://doi.org/10.1111/hir.12477
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/maria-grant-28a12b27/
ABSTRACT
The rigours of the past few years have demonstrated the importance of good health literacy levels with the imperative of being able to obtain and interpret information to maintain and improve one's health never more apparent. With this in mind, this issue is focused on consumer health information, the gender and population group differences that exist in information seeking behaviour, the challenges of understanding medical explanations and terminology, and existing criteria to assess and ultimately produce better consumer health information.
HIFA profile: Neil Pakenham-Walsh is coordinator of HIFA (Healthcare Information For All), a global health community that brings all stakeholders together around the shared goal of universal access to reliable healthcare information. HIFA has 20,000 members in 180 countries, interacting in four languages and representing all parts of the global evidence ecosystem. HIFA is administered by Global Healthcare Information Network, a UK-based nonprofit in official relations with the World Health Organization. Email: neil@hifa.org
