Hi Everyone,
In one of the seminal books about health literacy, Advancing Health Literacy: A Framework For Understanding and Action, the authors identified and described four domains of Health Literacy:
- Fundamental literacy
- Scientific literacy
- Civic literacy
- Cultural literacy
These domains are the areas of knowledge which one must have in order to be highly health literate. As adult literacy practitioners, we are most familiar with fundamental literacy, which is the basic literacy skills that we teach. Scientific literacy is the basic knowledge about the human body and its systems that we need in order to understand health and disease. Civic literacy is an understanding of our place in society, and our rights and responsibilities within that society. I would include the ability and confidence to take advantage of these rights, and to fulfill these responsibilities.(This comes into play when interacting with the health care system and its many intimidating people and demands!) And cultural literacy is the understanding of--and ability to navigate--the culture that we find ourselves in. That "culture" may be the U.S. as a new home for recent immigrants, or the culture of the healthcare system itself.
As I look at this list, I think that all of these domains are addressed in adult education classes in one way or another. This is great news, as it supports a health literate population, even if we do not address health directly in our programs.
How does your program address these four domains in the course of your normal curricula?
What do you think about this way of breaking down health literacy into these components?
I would love to hear what you all think!
Julie