Health Promotion

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Topic 5 Health literacy

Health Promotion Unit 1 Defining health & mental health Topic 5 Health literacy

Health literacy is an important aspect of health promotion and key determinant in managing diseases, improving health outcomes and improving the general efficacy of the health care system.

"Linked to education and entails people's knowledge, motivation and competences to access, understand, evaluate, and apply health information in everyday life decision making concerning healthcare, disease prevention and health promotion to maintain or improve quality of life during the life course”
Sørensen, 2012
“Health literacy occurs when the skills and ability of those requiring health information and services are aligned with the demand and complexity of information and services available.”
Parker & Ratzan, 2010

Why it is important?

  • Low health literacy works as a health obstacle:

Low health literacy 🡪 poor health outcomes, lower adherence to the treatment, higher mortality rates

Low health literacy 🡪 poor communication between patient and health professional

  • Patients with high health literacy are 30% less likely to be re-admitted or visit the emergency department

Hospital re-admission rates decrease as the health literacy levels of the patients increases.

Health literacy has three levels (WHO, 2009):

  • Functional literacy: Skills that allow an individual to read consent forms, medication labels and health care information, to understand written and oral information given by physicians, nurses, pharmacists, or other health care professionals and to follow directions on taking medication correctly, implementing self-care at home, and keeping appointment schedules
  • Conceptual literacy: The wide range of skills, and competencies that people develop over their lifetimes to seek out, comprehend, evaluate, and use health information and concepts to make informed choices, reduces health risks, and increases quality of life.
  • Health literacy as empowerment: Strengthening active citizens’ engagement for health by combining his/her commitment with health promotion and prevention efforts

Skills that define adequate health literacy level

Being able to:

  • Access healthcare services
  • Analyze relative risks and benefits
  • Calculate medication dosages
  • Communicate with health care providers
  • Locate health information
  • Evaluate credibility and quality of information
  • Interpret test results
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