Shaping Alcohol Health Literacy: A Systematic Concept Analysis and Review

Abstract

Background: This study uses an innovative methodology to understand the implications of applying the emerging concept of health literacy to other contexts using the example of alcohol. Methods: An evolutionary concept analysis combined with the principles and standards of the systematic review process enables a rigorous analysis of the conceptual representation of alcohol health literacy. Key Results: Alcohol health literacy includes a wide range of attributes that encompass many different health literacies beyond simply the capacity to understand alcohol-related harms and use that information in decision-making. Alcohol health literacy empowers people to understand alcohol marketing and messages and how alcohol information is distributed through social networks. It is an outcome of media-related alcohol education, and its consequences include health action skills and realistic expectancies of alcohol. Discussion: The focus on health literacy, which emphasizes not only individual skills but also draws attention to the social determinants of alcohol use and how alcohol health literacy is shaped by social networks and interactions, provides important lessons for alcohol health promotion interventions. Health literacy when applied to alcohol includes many different domains and the innovative method used here provides a framework to develop interventions that build health literacy in different contexts. [HLRP: Health Literacy Research and Practice. 2020;4(1):e3-e20.] Health literacy has emerged as a key field of activity in health promotion and is a central pillar in the World Health Organization Shanghai statement (WHO, 2017). It states that both health and literacy are critical resources for everyday living and that health literacy directly affects people's ability to not only act on health information but also to take more control of their health as individuals, families, and communities and change those factors that constitute their health chances, such as access to healthy food, opportunities for physical activities, and active and informed involvement in health policy discussion (Nutbeam, 2000). There has been a huge rise in interest in the concept of health literacy. In 2012, there were 17 definitions of health literacy and 12 conceptual models (Sørensen et al., 2012), but by 2016 a review found over 250 definitions (Malloy-Weir, Charles, Gafni, & Entwistle, 2016). One current widely accepted definition describes health literacy as "the motivation, knowledge and competencies to access, understand, appraise

eHealth literacy during the COVID-19 pandemic: seeking, sharing, suspicion amongst older and younger UK populations

“…Discussions about the application of HL have focussed on rather 2D interpretations with a linear movement assumed from access to understanding and appraisal and finally to application of information and this focus has continued as HL is applied to the COVID-19 pandemic ( Okan et al , 2020 ; Paakkari and Okan, 2020 ). What is increasingly evident however, is that there is a ‘black box’ of HL.…”

“…In this vein, the study confirms the multi-dimensional eHL model proposed by Sykes et al (Sykes et al , 2020 ) in which complex movement and triangulation of sources is used as a strategy for managing complex and changing information. That HL is context specific has been previously highlighted ( McKenna et al , 2017 ; Okan et al , 2020 ) in which individual skills interplay with specific health and social systems or particular areas of health such as infectious diseases. The contextual difference of a pandemic, however, is that the importance of interactions with health professionals, a reputable source of information, is replaced by discussions with family and friends.…”

Digitale Gesundheitskompetenz – Konzeptionelle Verortung, Erfassung und Förderung mit Fokus auf Kinder und Jugendliche

“…Das Thema der digitalen Gesundheitskompetenz ist aus der Health-Literacy-Forschung und -Debatte nicht wegzudenken und nimmt einen kontinuierlich prominenteren Stellenwert ein [3,[8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15]. Gerade in Hinblick auf die Gesundheitskompetenz von Kindern und Jugendlichen spielt Digitalisierung eine besonders zentrale Rolle, weil die heranwachsende Generation gewissermaßen mit Geburt in die technischen Möglichkeiten und Errungenschaften des Internets und seine digitalen Weiterentwicklungen hineinsozialisiert wird [11,13,[16][17][18].…”

Addressing Health Literacy in Schools in Germany: Concept Analysis of the Mandatory Digital and Media Literacy School Curriculum

“…Children and adolescents seek, adopt, and produce digital information on the internet partly also on social media (10). Thus, there is a close conceptual relationship between health literacy on the one hand and media, information, and digital literacy on the other (12)(13)(14). They essentially share the competencies to deal with (health) information.…”