Health literacy is generally conceptualized as skills related to successfully navigating health – ultimately linked to well-being and improved health outcomes. Culture, gender and age are considered to be influential determinants of health literacy. The nexus between these determinants, and their collective relationship with health literacy, remains understudied, especially with respect to Indigenous people globally. This article presents findings from a recent study that examined the intersections between masculinities, culture, age and health literacy among young Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander males, aged 14–25 years in the Northern Territory, Australia. A mixed-methods approach was utilized to engage young Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander males. The qualitative components included Yarning Sessions and Photovoice using Facebook, which are used in this article. Thematic Analysis and Framework Analysis were used to group and analyse the data. Ethics approval was granted by Charles Darwin University Human Research Ethics Committee (H18043). This cohort constructs a complex interface comprising Western and Aboriginal cultural paradigms, through which they navigate health. Alternative Indigenous masculinities, which embrace and resist hegemonic masculine norms simultaneously shaped this interface. External support structures – including family, friends and community engagement programs – were critical in fostering health literacy abilities among this cohort. Young Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander males possess health literacy abilities that enable them to support the well-being of themselves and others. Health policymakers, researchers and practitioners can help strengthen and expand existing support structures for this population by listening more attentively to their unique perspectives.

The existing psychosocial Support activities in the Northern Territory, Australia, are mostly delivered through individualised outreach and client‐centred Support programs and do not currently have a strong Peer focus. To address this gap, a Peer‐Led Education Pilot was developed and implemented in Darwin, Australia. The pilot was comprised of three separate but overarching stages, and each stage was independently evaluated. In this article, results from Stage 1 will be presented, with a specific focus on the role of Peer‐to‐Peer communication in improving participants' mental health and Recovery skills. This stage involved the delivery of the My Recovery program to self‐nominated participants, and the evaluation was aimed at reporting on the appropriateness and effectiveness of the program. The evaluation was qualitative in design involving individual pre‐ and post‐program interviews with program participants (npre = 14, npost = 16) between August and October 2019. The program was well received by participants and helped build their capacity to understand and self‐manage their mental health and/or alcohol and other drug issues in an inclusive, non‐clinical, non‐judgemental space. The results highlighted the importance of including a strong Peer focus in the existing psychosocial Support services available for people with mental health issues in Darwin. The findings also underscored the inclusion of those with lived experience of mental health challenges in the design and delivery of such programs.

This brief report describes three key lessons learned during a health literacy research project with young Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander males from the Top End of the Northern Territory (NT), Australia. More specifically, it is a methodologically focused paper that discusses processes associated with using a combination of yarning sessions and social media content as tools to unpack conceptualisations of health and well-being among this marginalised population. The lessons discussed include (a) the utility of using social media in providing an authentic window into the lives of a hard-to-reach populations; (b) the need to carefully consider ethical implications; and (c) the benefits of using social media content to triangulate data and enhance methodological rigour. To understand the methodological contribution social media can make to equity-focused health literacy research, it is first useful to understand what is meant by health literacy.Globally, the term 'health literacy' has been adopted widely, and defined broadly, in a range of health promotion policy, practice and research contexts. [1][2][3][4][5][6][7] This has extended to concepts such as health literacy responsiveness and distributed health literacy. 6-7 A focus on health literacy measurement has been a significant part of the emerging health literacy discourse. [8][9][10][11] This has focused on ways to measure health literacy at both individual and population level. 5 For example, popular and well tested tools developed by Australian researchers have included the Health Literacy Questionnaire (HLQ), Information and Support for Health Action -Questionnaire (ISHA-Q) and the Conversational Health Literacy Assessment Tool (CHAT). 12-14 These tools, and others, have increasingly been used in contexts with vulnerable populations where health inequities are well documented, 13,[15][16][17] including Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. 17-18 However, multiple scholars have also pointed toward the importance of adopting qualitative approaches to better understand the health literacy needs of vulnerable and marginalised populations, including Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander populations. [18][19] This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.