Health literacy as a public health goal: a challenge for contemporary health education and communication strategies into the 21st century

Nutbeam, Don

doi:10.1093/heapro/15.3.259

Cited by 3,616 publications

(3,829 citation statements)

References 10 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

3,233

Contrasting

Unclassified

290

Order By: Relevance

“…42 Health education activities directed to the less privileged populations with the goal of reducing inequalities in access and use of health services have been shown to be effective, 42,43 yet the potential of health education as a tool for political action and behavior change has been lost in contemporary health promotion. 44 Our findings suggest a need for focused and sustained health education with the goal of providing women and communities with information on the importance of early initiation and appropriate frequency of ANC and delivery at appropriate health facilities. The program should also seek to correct common misconceptions (for example, the belief that higher parity is associated with lower risks) and address some of the sociocultural barriers that hinder women's utilization of health services.…”

Section: Providing Focused and Sustained Health Educationmentioning

confidence: 81%

Provision and Use of Maternal Health Services among Urban Poor Women in Kenya: What Do We Know and What Can We Do?

2008

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

In sub-Saharan Africa, the unprecedented population growth that started in the second half of the twentieth century has evolved into unparalleled urbanization and an increasing proportion of urban dwellers living in slums and shanty towns, making it imperative to pay greater attention to the health problems of the urban poor. In particular, urgent efforts need to focus on maternal health. Despite the lack of reliable trend data on maternal mortality, some investigators now believe that progress in maternal health has been very slow in sub-Saharan Africa. This study uses a unique combination of health facility-and individual-level data collected in the slums of Nairobi, Kenya to: (1) describe the provision of obstetric care in the Nairobi informal settlements; (2) describe the patterns of antenatal and delivery care, notably in terms of timing, frequency, and quality of care; and (3) draw policy implications aimed at improving maternal health among the rapidly growing urban poor populations. It shows that the study area is deprived of public health services, a finding which supports the view that low-income urban residents in developing countries face significant obstacles in accessing health care. This study also shows that despite the high prevalence of antenatal care (ANC), the proportion of women who made the recommended number of visits or who initiated the visit in the first trimester of pregnancy remains low compared to Nairobi as a whole and, more importantly, compared to rural populations. Bivariate analyses show that household wealth, education, parity, and place of residence were closely associated with frequency and timing of ANC and with place of delivery. Finally, there is a strong linkage between use of antenatal care and place of delivery. The findings of this study call for urgent attention by Kenya's Ministry of Health and local authorities to the void of quality health services in poor urban communities and the need to provide focused and sustained health education geared towards promoting use of obstetric services.

show abstract

Section: Providing Focused and Sustained Health Educationmentioning

confidence: 81%

Provision and Use of Maternal Health Services among Urban Poor Women in Kenya: What Do We Know and What Can We Do?

2008

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…This recognition has been evident in health policy for many years, particularly in resource-poor settings in the global south where maternal literacy has long been linked to prospects for health improvement (Preston, 1980;Grosse and Aufray, 1989;Phillips 1990;Le Vine et al 1994). In more recent years this work has been developed and extended through the formulation of the concept of health literacy (Nutbeam, 2000(Nutbeam, , 2008Rudd, 2010;Kickbusch et al 2013), a concept that has become a dominant framework for research into the impact of numeracy and numeracy on health status. At its 'functional' level (Nutbeam, 2000), health literacy relates to the ability to read and understand basic healthrelated information.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In more recent years this work has been developed and extended through the formulation of the concept of health literacy (Nutbeam, 2000(Nutbeam, , 2008Rudd, 2010;Kickbusch et al 2013), a concept that has become a dominant framework for research into the impact of numeracy and numeracy on health status. At its 'functional' level (Nutbeam, 2000), health literacy relates to the ability to read and understand basic healthrelated information. This encompasses both the ability to read and understand words (termed literacy in this paper), and the ability to use quantitative information (which we term numeracy) (Berkman et al, 2011, Baker, 2006.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Towards an understanding of the relationship of functional literacy and numeracy to geographical health inequalities

Moon

Aitken

Roderick

et al. 2015

Social Science & Medicine

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

The relative contributions of functional literacy and functional numeracy to health disparities remain poorly understood in developed world contexts. We seek to unpack their distinctive contributions and to examine how these contributions are framed by place-based deprivation and rurality. We present a multilevel logistic analysis of the 2011 Skills for Life Survey (SfLS), a representative governmental survey of adults aged 16-65 in England. Outcome measures were self-assessed health status and the presence of self-reported long-term health conditions. Exposure variables were functional literacy (FL) and functional numeracy (FN).Age, sex, individual socio-economic status, ethnicity, whether English was a first language, non-UK birthplaces, housing tenure and geography were included as potential confounders and mediators. Geography was measured as area-based deprivation and urban/rural status. FL and FN were both independently associated with self-assessed health status, though the association attenuated after taking account of confounders and mediators. For long-term conditions, the association with FN remained significant following inclusion of confounders and mediators whilst FL attenuated to non-significance. Rurality did not influence these associations. Area deprivation was a significant factor in attenuating the association between FL and self-assessed health status. Policy makers and health professionals will need to be aware of the distinctive impact of FN as well as FL when combating health inequalities, promoting health and managing long-term conditions.

show abstract

“…As in general literacy studies, these levels can be described as functional, interactive and critical health literacy (Nutbeam 2000). The different levels are distinguished by the higher levels of knowledge and skills that progressively support greater autonomy and personal empowerment in healthrelated decision-making, as well as engagement with a wider range of health knowledge that extends from personal health management to the social determinants of health.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Defining and measuring health literacy: what can we learn from literacy studies?

Nutbeam

2009

Int J Public Health

241

186

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Health literacy as a public health goal: a challenge for contemporary health education and communication strategies into the 21st century

Cited by 3,616 publications

References 10 publications

Provision and Use of Maternal Health Services among Urban Poor Women in Kenya: What Do We Know and What Can We Do?

Provision and Use of Maternal Health Services among Urban Poor Women in Kenya: What Do We Know and What Can We Do?

Towards an understanding of the relationship of functional literacy and numeracy to geographical health inequalities

Defining and measuring health literacy: what can we learn from literacy studies?

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About