Communities of Interest - Health Literacy
| Leader |
|---|
 The Leader of this COI is Caroline Marshall. Caroline Marshall joined Danbury Hospital, as a Health Sciences Librarian in 2006. In 2007 Caroline started introducing the topic of Health Literacy to hospital staff through presentations and in services and created a health Literacy Training module for staff. She has worked with the Patient Education committee to increase the readability of materials, introducing a lay person and patient advocate to sit on the committee. An article she co-wrote on this topic has been recently published in the March/April edition of Journal of Nursing in Staff Development. She is regularly invited to present to new medical residents. Caroline is currently working with the new Primary Care Residency Program to create a health literacy module for their curriculum. |
| Facilitator |
 The facilitator of this COI is Michelle Eberle. She can be reached at michelle.eberle@umassmed.edu |
The Health Literacy theme is concerned with the practice and scholarship related to the communication of information, the development of personal skills in health care, and the critical literacy skills needed for personal and community empowerment (Osborne, Helen. Health Literacy from A-Z Practical Ways to Communicate Your Health Message. Jones and Bartlett Publishers: Boston, MA, 2005.). Relevant to libraries are those health information literacy skills needed to recognize a health information need, identify and retrieve relevant information, assess quality specific to the situation, and analyze the information to make good health care decisions. (2008, Medical Library Association, The Health Information Literacy Curriculum). The Health Literacy Community of Interest is concerned with how the practice of providing appropriate-level information affects overall health decision making and the information provision aspect of that dynamic. The expert collaborators in this area are numerous. The region has several health literacy institutions, consultant groups, and Health Communications programs in academic institutions like Harvard and Tufts University. Many hospitals also have a patient education committee concerned with providing relevant and appropriate information resources.
Health Literacy is another area that clearly intersects with consumer health programs and there are several modes of fostering health literacy. One mode is continuing the work of developing a basic understanding of health literacy issues (prevalence, specific needs, and basic practices) across all audiences, particularly as NER trains librarians in the health sciences or the public library setting. Another mode is underscoring the importance of selecting the right resource for the right patient or individual. This involves skills in assessing the level or type of information that is needed as well as knowledge of the types and levels of information that are available.
Promoting health literacy also involves fostering new skills for health sciences librarians moving beyond acquiring a basic understanding of health literacy issues. Libraries and librarians at Member institutions should become stewards of health information literacy and work with other professional and staff groups to develop institutional policies and educational material directed at providing patients with the most understandable information available to the patient. NER will raise awareness in the region of solutions for health literacy such as: readability, design, easy to read resources; development/use of multimedia tools; plain language, teach-back; effective health care communication and increased patient-provider dialogue.
The Health Literacy Community of Interest will be encouraged to promote solutions to health literacy in the region including: integrating health literacy education into nursing/allied health and medical school curricula; creating programs to "close the comprehension gap"; and increase community coalition building. Also, NER will promote emerging resources such as the AHRQ's Health Literacy Universal Precautions Toolkit and the CDC's National Action Plan to Improve Health Literacy in Your Organization.
The definition of health literacy has evolved through the years and will continue to evolve with new understanding. The original Healthy People 2010 definition, which the government embraces, focuses on the individual's role in managing one's health. In 2000, the AMA Council on Scientific Affairs evolved the definition to focus on comprehension as well as how to successfully function as a patient. Recently, a group of health literacy experts convened in Canada to develop a better definition of health literacy which focuses on communication, sharing and responsibility as shared roles for the public and health care personnel. Important concepts to health literacy are communication and self efficacy, or having the confidence to do what you need to do.
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You can learn more about the Health Literacy COI by perusing the achives of our blog:
