Need of health literacy for public

Health literacy implies the achievement of a level of knowledge, personal skills and confidence to take action to improve personal and community health by changing personal lifestyles and living conditions. Thus, health literacy means more than being able to read pamphlets and make appointments. By improving people’s access to health information, and their capacity to use it effectively, health literacy is critical to empowerment. Health literacy is itself dependent upon more general levels of literacy. Poor literacy can affect people’s health directly by limiting their personal, social and cultural development, as well as hindering the development of health literacy (The Magazine of the United Nations, Vol. XLVI No. 1 & 2 2009).  

With the development of science and technology, the health as a field of caring is being developed rapidly, decreasing simply the mortality and morbidity in many developed as well as developing countries. But health literacy among public is rear yet when it considers the accessibility of medical care such as doctors, clinics, pharmacies, medical drugs as well as medical terms. For instance, when you got a medical prescription note from the consultant including drugs with the dose and the number of days, are you sure that you can understand all the details given by your doctor. Would you find interest in searching of what you are supposed to have as your treatments? This is one way of dissemination of health information directly from an expert to a person who is probably unaware of the medical language. In this point, there is a gap between the knowledge of the experts and the patient though the patient is the one who use the advice given to him or her by the expert. The point is: just because individuals (a patient or general public who do not have the knowledge of reading their own body) are given information about health does not mean that they will simply adopt the information given, understand it or even read it in the first place! Thus, when it comes to using information dissemination as an approach to influence behaviour change to improve health, it is worth considering whether 1) the information reaches and is understood by its intended recipients 2) the recipients have the necessary skills to adopt the information 3) the environmental and structural conditions are supportive of the behaviours advocated.  

This is where the concept of health literacy comes in. Though there is no single definition on what is health literacy, my eye captured Kickbusch, Wait & Maag’s ,their book of ‘Navigating helath: The role of health literacy’ definition on health literacy as very informative and comprehensive note. It says that ‘the ability to make sound health decisions in the context of everyday life - at home, in the community, at the workplace, in the health care system, the market place and the political arena. It is critical empowerment strategy to increase people’s control over their health, their ability to seek out information and their ability to take responsibility.’  

According to my point of view the definition underlines three levels of health literacy: functional health literacy, interactive health literacy and the critical health literacy. While functional health literacy refers to the basic reading and writing skills that can help individuals to function effectively in the healthcare context; interactive health literacy refers to the development of personal skills in a supportive environment to improve personal capacity to enable individuals to act independently based on knowledge. Critical health literacy refers to the ability to critically evaluate and use information to actively participate in health promotion.   

Thus, it is important to promote health literacy among the general public as medical knowledge is centralized within a particular group of people. General public need to understand what they know about health and what they are lacking. Think: do you search of the information of medical drugs you receive from the hospital or pharmacy. If ‘no’ why? Is it because you trust your consultant or you have poor health literacy. Think aloud!   
This note was developed referring to a book on Health Psychology.