A systematic review of eHealth interventions to improve health literacy

Abstract

Implementation of eHealth is now considered an effective way to address concerns about the health status of health care consumers. The purpose of this study was to review empirically based eHealth intervention strategies designed to improve health literacy among consumers in a variety of settings. A computerized search of 16 databases of abstracts (e.g. Biomedical Reference Collection, Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials, Computers & Applied Sciences Complete, Health Technology Assessments, MEDLINE) were explored in a systematic fashion to assess the presence of eHealth applications targeting health literacy. Compared to control interventions, the interventions using technology reported significant outcomes or showed promise for future positive outcomes regarding health literacy in a variety of settings, for different diseases, and with diverse samples. This review has indicated that it is feasible to deliver eHealth interventions specifically designed to improve health literacy skills for people with different health conditions, risk factors, and socioeconomic backgrounds.

Effects of the Informed Health Choices podcast on the ability of parents of primary school children in Uganda to assess claims about treatment effects: a randomised controlled trial

“…So far as we are aware, this is the first randomised trial of using a podcast for non-formal education or health education, other than a podcast to aid weight loss. [42][43][44][45][46][47][48][49][50][51][52][53] Systematic reviews of educational podcasts, 43 mobile learning, 44,45 parental involvement in education, 46,47 eHealth to improve health literacy, 48 mobile health (mHealth), [49][50][51][52] interactive media for parental education, 53 and narrative health promotion interventions 54 have not found studies that are directly comparable to ours. Although several interventions to improve the ability of non-health professionals to think critically about treatments have been evaluated, most of these have focused on one concept: that treatments usually have beneficial and harmful effects that need to be considered (the last concept in Table 1).…”

Healthcare Communication Barriers and Self-Rated Health in Older Chinese American Immigrants

“…Training community members who share the same culture and language background as the targeted patient population to deliver carefully designed health messages or information has been shown to effectively promote both chronic disease management and cancer screening in LEP minority populations (Nguyen, Stewart, Nguyen, Bui-Tong, & McPhee, 2015; Viswanathan et al, 2010; Viswanathan et al, 2009), including among older Chinese immigrants (Nguyen et al, 2010). Another promising strategy to address low health literacy among older Chinese immigrants is the use of digital technologies to deliver culturally and linguistically tailored multi-media health information, helping to reduce the barrier presented by low print health literacy (Jacobs, Lou, Ownby, & Caballero, 2014). Future longitudinal studies can explore the relationship between healthcare communication barriers and self-rated health to see if increasing one's verbal communication capability in the healthcare settings and/or increasing individuals’ capacity to understand written health information or ensuring that health education materials are comprehensible for individuals with low health literacy may improve self-rated health status, potentially lowering morbidity and mortality.…”

Understanding and Promoting Effective Engagement With Digital Behavior Change Interventions

“…[45][46][47] These approaches have shown promise for improving knowledge and selfmanagement, but the evidence is inconclusive, few studies have been theory-based, and it remains unclear whether different intervention elements engage and optimize outcomes for people at varying levels of health literacy. 48 There is some evidence that intervention design formats that are accessible and engaging for people with lower levels of health literacy may also be acceptable and usable by people with higher levels. 49 If confirmed, those findings suggest that DBCIs for all can be designed to be accessible and engaging for those with low health literacy.…”