141st APHA Annual Meeting

In This section

285992
A new health literacy model for limited english speaking immigrants

Monday, November 4, 2013 : 10:50 AM - 11:10 AM

Mei-Po Yip, PhD , Department of Medicine, University of Washington, Seattle, WA
Health literacy (HL) is critical to effective communication between individuals and their health care providers. HL has become increasingly important globally with the emergence of chronic diseases, growing immigrant populations who speak little English, and the increasing emphasis on active patient involvement in their management of disease. Unfortunately, health literacy studies have seldom included immigrant populations. Immigrants experience declining health for a number of years upon immigration to their host country. The subsequent decline in health has been attributed to difficulties with settling, adjusting and integrating into the host country. Immigrants have difficulties adapting to the consumer model of health care, which incorporates the concepts of individual responsibility, autonomy and choice. In addition, understanding of health literacy is limited by the variability in the concept itself, and by the uncertainty about the mechanisms through which low health literacy leads to health disparities. Existing theoretical constructs provide a poor match to the variables measured by health literacy assessments, which have been criticized for their inability to capture complex concepts and relationships in terms of language, culture, communication, and technology. The objective of this review is to examine existing health literacy models and measures to assess their application to immigrant population with Limited English Proficiency in the context of information and communication technology. We proposed a new health literacy model that elucidates the causal pathway that links health literacy, health behaviors, and health outcomes. Our proposed constructs: source, context, process, and outcome provide a comprehensive and novel approach to study health literacy.

Learning Areas:
Assessment of individual and community needs for health education
Provision of health care to the public
Public health or related public policy
Public health or related research
Social and behavioral sciences
Systems thinking models (conceptual and theoretical models), applications related to public health

Learning Objectives:
Describe a new health literacy model for Limited English Speaking populations.

Keywords: Communication, Health Education

Presenting author's disclosure statement:

Qualified on the content I am responsible for because: I am the author of the manuscript titled: A health literacy model for limited English speaking populations: sources, context, process, and outcomes
Any relevant financial relationships? No

I agree to comply with the American Public Health Association Conflict of Interest and Commercial Support Guidelines, and to disclose to the participants any off-label or experimental uses of a commercial product or service discussed in my presentation.