Health Literacy

The increasing prevalence of obesity over the course of life is a global health challenge because of its strong and positive association with significant health problems such as type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease, stroke, and some cancers. The complex causes and drivers of obesity include genetic factors, social, ecological and political influences, food production and supply, and dietary patterns. Public health messages and government food and activity guidelines have little impact; the retail food environment has many low-priced, nutrient-poor, but energy-dense products and there is a gap between what an individual knows and what they do...

Racial/ethnic minority young men who have sex with men (YMSM)-particularly African Americans and Hispanics/Latinos-are at particularly high risk for HIV infection. Devising strategies to improve engagement and retention in HIV prevention services among minority YMSM is critical if the United States is going to achieve the National HIV/AIDS Strategy goal of reducing HIV health-related disparities. This article presents findings from a national summit on racial/ethnic YMSM services convened by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration-funded Center of Excellence on Racial and Ethnic Minority Young Men Who Have Sex with Men and Other Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Populations (YMSM + LGBT CoE) in September 2015...

Hmong Americans face a disproportionate health burden ranging from the high prevalence of diabetes to depressive disorders. Little research attention has been paid toward exploring contributing factors to this disparity. As such, the present study seeks to fill the gap in the literature by examining the health literacy levels in Hmong Americans and its associated factors. The present study employed Andersen's behavioral model of health service as the theoretical framework. A cross-sectional survey research design was used and information was gathered from 168 Hmong American immigrants...

Environmental health literacy (EHL) is a promising and evolving field of research that could benefit from youth engagement. Yet studies focused on youths' environmental health awareness and concerns are limited. For example, although lead exposure remains a threat to youth development in urban environments, no published studies have measured urban youth's knowledge of lead poisoning. A CBPR partnership established a youth advisory council (YAC) who helped to design, interpret and disseminate a mixed methods study exploring environmental health perceptions among urban youths ages 10-18...

Up to now, little attention has been paid to West Africa when it comes to shared decision making (SDM). West African countries seem to lag behind with regard to SDM initiatives compared to many other countries in the world. There is some interest in informed decision-making or informed consent, but little in a full SDM process. Few decision-making tools are available for healthcare professionals and the majority are not designed to support decision-making with patients. Furthermore, to the best of our knowledge, there are no training programs for implementing SDM in healthcare teams...

BACKGROUND: Child feeding practices are multidimensional, and they change rapidly within short age intervals. Suboptimal complementary feeding practices contribute to a rapid increase in the prevalence of undernutrition in children in the age of 6-23 months. Information on child feeding practices among urban resident is limited in Ethiopia. The aim was to measure minimum meal frequency and dietary diversity and associated factors among children 6-23 months of age in Wolaita Sodo, Ethiopia...

BACKGROUND: Health literacy (HL) is defined as necessary competencies to make well-informed decisions. As patients' decision making is a key element of patient-centered health care, insight in patients' HL might help healthcare professionals to organize their care accordingly. This is particularly true for people in a vulnerable situation, potentially with limited HL, who are, for instance, at greater risk of having limited access to care [1, 2]. As HL correlates with education, instruments should allow inclusion of low literate people...

BACKGROUND: We test the hypotheses that use of the Chest Pain Choice (CPC) decision aid (DA) would be similarly effective in potentially vulnerable subgroups but increase knowledge more in patients with higher education and trust in physicians more in patients from racial minority groups. METHODS: This was a secondary analysis of a multicenter randomized trial in adults with chest pain potentially due to acute coronary syndrome. The trial compared an intervention group engaged in shared decision making (SDM) using CPC to a control group receiving usual care (UC)...

Health literacy is recognized as an integral component of high-quality health care. However, health literacy has been understudied in the context of cancer care delivery and surgical decision making. The goal of this article is to outline a process for implementation of a health literacy screening assessment within the routine practices of an academic breast surgical oncology clinic. The self-reported health literacy assessment is feasible, particularly with integration of the health literacy screen in the electronic health record...

Until recently, the Non Communicable Diseases (NCD) epidemic has been considered only a significant burden to men in high-income countries. However, latest figures indicate that half of all NCD-related deaths affect women, especially in Low- and Middle-Income Countries (LMICs), with global responses to the NCD epidemic overlooking the significance of women and girls in their approaches and programmes. This case study highlights the burden of disease challenging South Africa that disproportionately affects women in the country, and suggests that the country, along with other LMICs internationally, requires a shift in the gender-based leadership of health literacy and self-empowerment...

BACKGROUND: Health literacy studies have primarily focused on the cognitive and social skills of individuals needed to gain access to, understand, and use health information. This area of study is undergoing a paradigm shift with increased attention being paid to the skills of practitioners and an examination of their contribution to the link between literacy and health outcomes. The aim of this study was to describe the health literacy related competencies of General Practice (GP) trainees who will soon be responsible for the clinical encounter...

OBJECTIVE: To determine the effect of an oral health literacy intervention on oral health literacy-related outcomes among rural-dwelling Indigenous Australian adults. METHODS: A total of 400 Indigenous adults (203 intervention and 197 control participants) were recruited into a randomized controlled trial; a functional, context-specific oral health literacy interventions were developed and implemented by Indigenous staff. The intervention comprised five sessions, each lasting 1...

BACKGROUND: Over the past three decades, interventions have been implemented to reduce childhood mortality in Iran. Despite declines in overall mortality rates, inequalities in mortality across socioeconomic groups have remained unchanged. In this study, we assessed inequalities in infant mortality in rural regions of Iran. METHODS: We obtained data from the Iranian vital registration system, which includes data on 5,626,158 live births, 79,457 neonatal deaths, and 36,397 postneonatal deaths in rural areas of Iran over the course of a 16-year period, which was then divided into 4 four-year intervals...

Importance: Documentation rates of patients' medical wishes are often low. It is unknown whether easy-to-use, patient-facing advance care planning (ACP) interventions can overcome barriers to planning in busy primary care settings. Objective: To compare the efficacy of an interactive, patient-centered ACP website (PREPARE) with an easy-to-read advance directive (AD) to increase planning documentation. Design, Setting, and Participants: This was a comparative effectiveness randomized clinical trial from April 2013 to July 2016 conducted at multiple primary care clinics at the San Francisco VA Medical Center...

No abstract text is available yet for this article.

BACKGROUND: This report describes the findings of the survey conducted by South African Depression and Anxiety Group (SADAG) in a cohort of disadvantaged South African adolescent scholars in which PHQ-9 teen version was modified and adapted (PHQ-9M) to improve the response rate. METHOD: PHQ-9M was administered to 2025 secondary students of 35 schools over 2 years in Gauteng Province, South Africa. RESULTS: The mean age was 15.8 years. 23% of respondents scored 9 or above, 26...

Mental health practices are not working for older people with anxiety in residential care, as there is a persistent lack of recognition and treatment. This suggests that alternative ways of reaching and meeting the needs of this population need to be explored. One possibility involves enabling older adults themselves to seek help. The current work explored various factors impacting on help-seeking behaviours. In total, 105 participants from independent living units in a residential care setting completed a questionnaire focusing on attitudes and stigma towards anxiety, likelihood to seek help, help-seeking barriers and literacy around the symptoms of anxiety...

OBJECTIVE: The present work aimed at cross-cultural adaptation and validation of the health literacy assessment tool Newest Vital Sign (NVS) in general population (GP) and highly educated (HE) samples of Brazilian adults. DESIGN: An expert committee reviewed the translation and back-translation processes and the cultural adaptation. The construct validity was analysed with confirmatory factor analysis and via associations with features of the study population. SETTING: The final validation test was performed in two different populations from Londrina, a large town in southern Brazil...

BACKGROUND: Patients with limited health literacy may have less knowledge and fewer resources for efficient access and navigation of the health care system. We tested the null hypothesis that there is no correlation between health literacy and total time spent seeking hand surgery care. METHODS: New patients visiting a hand surgery clinic at a suburban academic medical center were asked to complete a questionnaire to determine demographics, total time spent seeking hand surgery care, and outcomes...

BACKGROUND: Most evidence (not all) points in the direction that individuals with a higher level of health literacy will less frequently utilize the health care system than individuals with lower levels of health literacy. The underlying reasons of this effect are largely unclear, though people's ability to seek health information independently at the time of wide availability of such information on the Internet has been cited in this context. OBJECTIVE: We propose and test two potential mediators of the negative effect of eHealth literacy on health care utilization: (1) health information seeking and (2) gain in empowerment by information seeking...