Language Literacy And Health

Language, Literacy, and Health: Discourse in Brazil’s National Health System analyzes language, literacy, and health as social practices in Brazil’s national health system, the Unified Health System (SUS), with a particular focus on the Family Health Strategy program. The SUS was established in the 1990s, offering free consultations, health promotion activities, and home visits by a professional team to the Brazilian population. Using research conducted in two different Brazilian regions, the Northeast and the Southeast, Izabel Magalhães and Kênia Lara da Silva discuss language and literacy as discourse—a very important dimension of health practice—and different uses of texts, including multimodal texts. The research, analysis, and the authors’ ethnographic approach bring to light some issues with SUS practices, and the authors suggest improvements. This book contributes to the debate about language and literacy in health practices, in which patients are partly responsible for keeping well.

The aging and evolving racial and ethnic composition of the U.S. population has the United States in the midst of a profound demographic shift and health care organizations face many issues as they move to address and adapt to this change. In their drive to adequately serve increasingly diverse communities, health care organizations are searching for approaches that will enable them to provide information and service to all persons, regardless of age, race, cultural background, or language skills, in a manner that facilitates understanding and use of that information to make appropriate health decisions. To better understand how the dynamic forces operating in health care today impact the delivery of services in a way that is health literate, culturally competent, and in an appropriate language for patients and their families, the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine conducted a public workshop on the integration of health literacy, cultural competency, and language access services. Participants discussed skills and competencies needed for effective health communication, including health literacy, cultural competency, and language access services; interventions and strategies for integration; and differing perspectives such as providers and systems, patients and families, communities, and payers. This report summarizes the presentations and discussions from the workshop.

Advancing Health Literacy addresses the crisis in health literacy in the United States and around the world. This book thoroughly examines the critical role of literacy in public health and outlines a practical, effective model that bridges the gap between health education, health promotion, and health communication. Step by step, the authors outline the theory and practice of health literacy from a public health perspective. This comprehensive resource includes the history of health literacy, theoretical foundations of health and language literacy, the role of the media, a series of case studies on important topics including prenatal care, anthrax, HIV/AIDS, genomics, and diabetes. The book concludes with a series of practical guidelines for the development and assessment of health communications materials. Also included are essential techniques needed to help people make informed decisions, advocate for themselves and their community, mitigate risk, and live healthier lives.

To maintain their own health and the health of their families and communities, consumers rely heavily on the health information that is available to them. This information is at the core of the partnerships that patients and their families forge with today's complex modern health systems. This information may be provided in a variety of forms â€" ranging from a discussion between a patient and a health care provider to a health promotion advertisement, a consent form, or one of many other forms of health communication common in our society. Yet millions of Americans cannot understand or act upon this information. To address this problem, the field of health literacy brings together research and practice from diverse fields including education, health services, and social and cultural sciences, and the many organizations whose actions can improve or impede health literacy. Health Literacy: Prescription to End Confusion examines the body of knowledge that applies to the field of health literacy, and recommends actions to promote a health literate society. By examining the extent of limited health literacy and the ways to improve it, we can improve the health of individuals and populations.

Health literacy, cultural competence, and language access services are distinct but inextricably linked concepts for delivering equitable care to all members of the increasingly diverse population of the United States. These concepts are linked, but they developed via different paths, and each has its own unique focus with regard to enabling every individual to obtain the ability to process and understand basic health information and services needed to make appropriate health care decisions. Fragmentation of these disciplines has impeded implementation of relevant measures for quality improvement and accountability. To foster an integrated approach to health literacy, cultural competency, and language access services, the Roundtable on Health Literacy initiated a project with three components: a commissioned paper to propose a framework for integrating measurements of health literacy, cultural competency, and language access; a workshop to review and discuss the framework; and a second commissioned paper that will provide a roadmap for integrating health literacy, cultural competency, and language access services as well as a revised measurement framework. Held on May 4, 2017, the workshop explored the quality performance measures for integration of health literacy, cultural competence, and language access services. This publication summarizes the presentations and discussions from the workshop.

With patient experience at the forefront of health care, effective communication of health messages is critical to quality care. This book offers proven strategies to help providers clearly explain health information to a variety of audiences, from patients and caregivers, to students and the public.

In this anthology of health literacy, drawing on New Social Literacy studies and contemporary debates on equity, we discuss health literacy within German regional and cultural contexts as well as in selected non-European regions, such as in Asia and South America. Topics include unique reviews on health literacy, new empirical results on different population groups, in-depth ethnographic insights into social contexts, interventions intended to improve health literacy, and innovative theoretical dialogs. The discussions within this book provide new ideas and intriguing new results, also shedding light on the explanatory power of the health literacy concept as well as its boundaries.

The roots of health literacy can be traced back to the national literacy movement in India under Gandhi and to aid groups working in Africa to promote education and health. The term health literacy was first used in 1974 and described as "health education meeting minimal standards for all school grade levels". From that first use the definition of health literacy evolved during the next 30 years with official definitions promulgated by government agencies and large programs. Despite differences among these definitions, they all hold in common the idea that health literacy involves the need for people to understand information that helps them maintain good health. Although the United States produces a majority of the research on health literacy, Europe has strong multinational programs as well as research efforts, and health literacy experts in developing countries have created successful programs implemented on a community level. Given these distinct strengths of efforts worldwide, there are many opportunities for collaboration. International collaboration can harness the United States' research power, Europe's multilingual and multinational experience, and developing nations' community-based programs to create robust programs and research that reach people-not based on language or nationality but on need and value. A workshop on international health literacy efforts that feature presentations and discussion about health literacy interventions from various countries as well as other topics related to international health literacy was held as the basis for this report. Health Literacy: Improving Health, Health Systems, and Health Policy Around the World summarizes the findings and discussions at the workshop.

An interdisciplinary overview of theory, history, and leading research in the field With a joint linguistic and medical perspective, The Handbook of Language in Public Health and Healthcare explores innovative approaches for improving clinical education, clinician-patient communication, assessment, and mass communication. Contributions by a diverse panel of experts address a wide range of key topics, including language concordance in clinical care, medical interpreting, the role of language as a social determinant of health, reaching linguistically diverse audiences during public health crises, assessing clinician language skills, and more. Organized into five parts, the Handbook covers the theory, history, and context of linguistics, language interpretation and translation, language concordance, medical language education pedagogy, and mass communication of health information with linguistically diverse populations. Throughout the text, detailed chapters present solutions and strategies with the potential to improve the health and healthcare of linguistically diverse populations worldwide. In an increasingly multilingual, global society, language has become a critical area of interest for advancing public health and healthcare. The Handbook of Language in Public Health and Healthcare: Helps professionals integrate language-appropriate communication in healthcare settings Addresses clinician-patient communication, assessment, research, and mass public health communication Offers key theoretical insights that inform the intersection of language, public health, and healthcare Highlights how various approaches in the field of linguistics have enriched public health and healthcare practices The Handbook of Language in Public Health and Healthcare is essential reading for undergraduate, postgraduate, and professional students of applied linguistics, health communication, and medicine. It is also an invaluable reference for language educators, clinicians, medical educators, linguists, health policy experts, and researchers.