Dear HIFA colleagues,
“Health literacy implies the achievement of a level of knowledge, personal skills and confidence to take action to improve personal and community health by changing personal lifestyles and living conditions. Thus, health literacy means more than being able to read pamphlets and make appointments. By improving people’s access to health information, and their capacity to use it effectively, health literacy is critical to empowerment.” Health Promotion Glossary, 1998. https://www.who.int/activities/improving-health-literacy
Question 7 of our survey asked: Is more support needed for health literacy? (helping people find, understand and use healthcare information)
In the survey, this scored the highest mark (4.74 out of maximum 5) among all the questions in the first section of the survey ('How important is access to reliable healthcare information?').
So nearly everybody 'agrees' or 'strongly agrees' that more support is needed.
This begs the question: How? We would like to invite you to consider this question here on HIFA forum.
What do we know about health literacy?
What are the different aspects of health literacy? WHat aspects are most important?
What are the different approaches to strengthening health literacy in different contexts?
Which approaches are most helpful in empowering people to find information that is reliable and relevant to their context?
Which approaches are most feasible in low-resource settings?
What other questions should we be asking?
We look forward to hear what you think. Please send any thoughts by email to: hifa@hifaforums.org
Best wishes, Neil
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
