Health literacy addresses the degree to which individuals have the capacity to obtain, process and understand basic health information and services to make appropriate health decisions.

Proposals for submission to this topic area may include evidence-informed: research, information and resources on optimizing health outcomes for individuals and communities with respect to health literacy, policy, programs, administration, counseling, equitable communication, advocacy, and public health initiatives. Information for this topic may also focus on: educational programs and public health initiatives that target prevention, provision of patient-centered care through knowledge-building and changing perspectives and health behaviors, and promotion of patient and family engagement in care. Additionally, information regarding interprofessional education, practice and/or research that addresses the implementation of interprofessional competencies specific to health literacy, communication, and public health initiatives would meet guidelines.

Research

• Health Literacy Research: outcomes, implementation, amelioration and models for evidence-based practice (EBP)
• Applied, implementation, or translational research related to the effectiveness of prevention, identification, policy, administration, advocacy and public awareness of health literacy challenges
• Outcomes research related to enhancing health literacy, information exchange, patient engagement and public health initiatives

Stakeholder Education

• Innovations in promoting health communication and literacy; including written, spoken and manual communication
• Preventing communication disorders
• Education of stakeholders (patients, communities, policymakers, health professionals) on topics which include: harm reduction (hearing hygiene; social isolation; falls and other comorbidities); and early identification (recognizing signs of illness, disease, disorders, delayed milestones)
• Facilitation of effective communication for family members and other stakeholders
• Evaluation of health initiative outcomes
• Health Literacy primers and tools for creating health literate counseling and education materials/interventions, including toolkits
• Communication of health information, and counseling, for informed decision making (for provider, for patient, for both)
• Counseling with specific attention to outcomes, including goal-setting, goal measurement, identification of barriers; and methods and techniques that significantly impact health decisions and actions
• Individual and social factors influencing health behaviors, including, but not limited to: socio-economic; cultural differences; sexual orientation; transgender and gender-non-conforming populations; religion; disability; linguistic expression; educational background; health beliefs; approaches to compassionate care across systems and communities.
• Promotion of health literacy to consumers by interprofessional teams and organizations, including use of mediated and face-to-face communication in information exchange; fostering clear communication between clients/consumers and providers; clients/consumers as partners in care and the role of shared decision making; adapting and delivering public health messages to diverse groups through innovative methods; increasing consumer knowledge and awareness about health issues; and effective means to influence and change behaviors and perspectives towards health issues
• Connection with culturally diverse and populations that systems are not designed to reach and access, through health literacy
• Increasing access and improving navigation of digital media
• Ethical issues as they pertain to health literacy and public health initiatives
• Shared decision making including fairness, equity, transparency, confidentiality, and use of health literacy in the promotion of autonomy and self-determination
• Technology as applied to health literacy in optimizing outcomes for individuals and communities
• Public health initiatives including access to interpreters and closed captioning; and equipment (virtual visits, telehealth)

Related Topics

Proposals with a primary focus on:

• Reading literacy should be submitted to the Literacy Assessment and Intervention topic area.
• Education models and the training of clinicians regarding health literacy, communication, and public health initiatives should be submitted to the Models of Academic and Clinical Education topic area.
• Intervention or assessment models which focus on development or delivery of telepractice, should be submitted to the Telepractice topic.