Literacy is increasingly being thought of as a social practice with its use and understandings being context dependent. As an essential element within and of education, literacy offers possibilities for engaging in everyday life. Health literacy has emerged as a means to develop health-promoting practices that has meaning in social contexts. Reflecting biomedical interests, the focus of health ...

BACKGROUND Defining health literacy from a public health perspective places greater emphasis on the knowledge and skills required to prevent disease and for promoting health in everyday life. Addressing health literacy at the community level provides great potential for improving health knowledge, skills and behaviours resulting in better health outcomes. Yet there is a notable absence of discu...

BACKGROUND Adult education institutions have been identified as potential settings to improve health literacy and address the health inequalities that stem from limited health literacy. However, few health literacy interventions have been tested in this setting. METHODS Feasibility study for an RCT of the UK Skilled for Health Program adapted for implementation in Australian adult education s...

methods this cross-sectional study was conducted on 200 older adults in southeast iran, during year 2015. the twenty health centers were selected randomly and 10 subjects were selected using multistage random sampling from a population from each health center. the test of functional health literacy in adults questionnaire was used for collecting the data. the data was analyzed using the stata.1...

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES No practical method for identifying patients with low heath literacy exists. We sought to develop screening questions for identifying patients with inadequate or marginal health literacy. METHODS Patients (n=332) at a VA preoperative clinic completed in-person interviews that included 16 health literacy screening questions on a 5-point Likert scale, followed by a val...

information and services to make appropriate health decisions—is essential to promote healthy people and communities. Health care institutions and public health systems play a critical role in health literacy, because they can make it easier or more difficult for people to find and use health information and services. For the first time, there are national data that demonstrate currently availa...

Background: Kidney failure patients with low health literacy are at increased risk for poor self-care and negative health outcome. Objectives: This study aimed to examine the role of health literacy in patient’s knowledge about kidney disease and medical care adherence and also to test the mediating role of kidney knowledge on the relationship between health literacy and medical adherence among...

OBJECTIVES To introduce a multi-site assessment of oral health literacy and to describe preliminary analyses of the relationships between health literacy and selected oral health outcomes within the context of a comprehensive conceptual model. METHODS Data for this analysis came from the Multi-Site Oral Health Literacy Research Study (MOHLRS), a federally funded investigation of health litera...

Health literacy as a discrete form of literacy is becoming increasingly important for social, economic and health development. The positive and multiplier effects of education and general literacy on population health, particularly women's health, are well known and researched. However, a closer analysis of the current HIV/AIDS epidemics, especially in Africa, indicates a complex interface betw...

OBJECTIVE To assess the health literacy of US parents and explore the role of health literacy in mediating child health disparities. METHODS A cross-sectional study was performed for a nationally representative sample of US parents from the 2003 National Assessment of Adult Literacy. Parent performance on 13 child health-related tasks was assessed by simple weighted analyses. Logistic regress...