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Implementing a Replicable Model for K-12 Health Literacy to Promote Positive Youth Development.

ABSTRACT: This article describes a replicable model of health literacy that promotes positive youth development. Now in its fifth year of implementation and run by Advance African Development, Inc., it is an integrated year-long, in-class, student-centered, technology-driven, and service-learning youth empowerment program. Forty-minute sessions are offered once a week to create health literate K-12 public school students able to use the Internet to obtain and understand health information, and to practice informed decision-making about their health. Data collected were qualitative and included student service learning projects to solve community health issues. Community engagement exposed students to problem-solving, collaborative and transformational leadership, and advocacy skills. Prior to the program, less than half of the students had heard of MedlinePlus, and those who had heard of it rarely could describe its purpose. Approximately 500 students and 10 teachers participated, and over 40 sessions were provided from August 2015 to June 2016.

SUBMITTER: Matambanadzo A

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6585446 | biostudies-literature | 2018

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Implementing a Replicable Model for K-12 Health Literacy to Promote Positive Youth Development.

Matambanadzo Annamore A Maynard Mary M Matambanadzo Tawanda T

Journal of consumer health on the Internet 20180201 1

This article describes a replicable model of health literacy that promotes positive youth development. Now in its fifth year of implementation and run by Advance African Development, Inc., it is an integrated year-long, in-class, student-centered, technology-driven, and service-learning youth empowerment program. Forty-minute sessions are offered once a week to create health literate K-12 public school students able to use the Internet to obtain and understand health information, and to practice ...[more]

PMID: 31223296

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Project description:Inadequate health literacy has been associated with poor management of long-term health conditions and has been identified as a key social determinant of health outcomes. However, little is understood about how health literacy might develop over time or the processes by which people may become more health literate. Our objectives were to describe how patients with a long-term condition practice health literacy in the management of their health and communication with health professionals, how they become more health literate over time and their experience of using health services. We also sought to identify and describe the motivations, facilitators and barriers in the practice of health literacy in healthcare consultations.We designed a longitudinal qualitative study using serial interviews with 18 participants to explore their experiences of learning to manage their condition and their experiences of health literacy when participating in healthcare processes. Participants were recruited from patient education programmes and were interviewed three times over a period of 9 months. A framework approach was used to analyse data.A model is presented that illustrates the development of health literacy along a trajectory that includes the development of knowledge, health literacy skills and practices, health literacy actions, abilities in seeking options and informed and shared decision making opportunities. Motivations and barriers to developing and practising health literacy skills partly reflected participants' characteristics but were also influenced by health professionals. Some participants developed their health literacy to a point where they became more involved in healthcare processes (including informed and shared decision-making).Patients with a long-term condition can develop health literacy skills over time and put their skills into practice in becoming more active in healthcare consultations. Our findings have implications for developing health literacy interventions aimed at patient involvement in healthcare processes and improved self-management of long-term conditions.

Project description:BackgroundThe World Economic Forum has recently highlighted substantial problems in mental health service provision and called for the rapid deployment of smarter, digitally-enhanced health services as a means to facilitate effective care coordination and address issues of demand. In mental health, the biggest enabler of digital solutions is the implementation of an effective model of care that is facilitated by integrated health information technologies (HITs); the latter ensuring the solution is easily accessible, scalable and sustainable. The University of Sydney's Brain and Mind Centre (BMC) has developed an innovative digital health solution - delivered through the Youth Mental Health and Technology Program - which incorporates two components: 1) a highly personalised and measurement-based (data-driven) model of youth mental health care; and 2) an industrial grade HIT registered on the Australian Register of Therapeutic Goods. This paper describes a research protocol to evaluate the impact of implementing the BMC's digital health solution into youth mental health services (i.e. headspace - a highly accessible, youth-friendly integrated service that responds to the mental health, physical health, alcohol or other substance use, and vocational concerns of young people aged 12 to 25 years) within urban and regional areas of Australia.MethodsThe digital health solution will be implemented into participating headspace centres using a naturalistic research design. Quantitative and qualitative data will be collected from headspace health professionals, service managers and administrators, as well as from lead agency and local Primary Health Network (PHN) staff, via service audits, Implementation Officer logs, online surveys, and semi-structured interviews, at baseline and then three-monthly intervals over the course of 12 months.DiscussionAt the time of publication, six headspace centres had been recruited to this study and had commenced implementation and impact evaluation. The first results are expected to be submitted for publication in 2021. This study will focus on the impact of implementing a digital health solution at both a service and staff level, and will evaluate digital readiness of service and staff adoption; quality, usability and acceptability of the solution by staff; staff self-reported clinical competency; overall impact on headspace centres as well as their lead agencies and local PHNs; and social return on investment.

Project description:BackgroundHealth literacy (HL) is implicated in improved health decision-making and health promotion, and reduced racial, ethnic, and socioeconomic health disparities. Three major areas of HL include functional, interactive, and critical HL. HL skills develop throughout the lifespan as individuals' psychosocial and cognitive capacities develop and as they accumulate experiences with navigating health systems. Though adolescence is marked by increased involvement in health decision-making, most HL studies and measures of HL have focused on adults. Both the adult and adolescent HL literature are also limited by the paucity of validated test-based measures for assessing HL. The existing test-based validated HL measures for adolescents were originally designed for adults. However, adolescents are at an earlier phase of developing their HL skills (e.g., fewer experiences navigating the health system) compared to adults and measures originally designed for adults may assume prior knowledge that adolescents may lack therein underestimating adolescents' HL. This study developed and validated test-based assessments of adolescents' functional, interactive, and critical HL.MethodsItems were generated in an iterative process: focus groups with adolescents informed item content, cognitive interviews with adolescents and expert consultation established content and face validity of the initial items, and items were revised or removed where indicated. High school students (n = 355) completed a measurement battery including the revised HL items. The items were evaluated and validated using Rasch measurement models.ResultsThe final 6-item functional, 10-item interactive, and 7-item critical HL assessments and their composite (23 items) fit their respective Rasch models. Item-level invariance was established for gender (male vs. female), age (12-15-year-olds vs. 16-18-year-olds), and ethnicity in all assessments. The assessments had good convergent validity with an established measure of functional HL and scores on the assessments were positively related to reading instructions before taking medicine and questioning the truthfulness of health information found online.ConclusionsThese assessments are the first test-based measures of adolescents' interactive and critical HL, the first test-based measure of functional HL designed for adolescents, and the first composite test-based assessment of all three major areas of HL. These assessments should be used to inform strategies for improving adolescents' HL, decision-making, and behaviors.

Project description:BackgroundHigh media use has been implicated in negative social and health outcomes among adolescents. Therefore, it is critical that adolescents develop skills to healthily engage with media content. Media health literacy (MHL), skills for assessing and responding to health-related media content, and potentially targetable moderators for the relationship between media use and health-related outcomes are understudied in adolescents. The lack of MHL assessment tools may have contributed to this research gap.ObjectiveThis study aimed to develop and validate test-based scales of adolescents' MHL.MethodsThe items developed were vetted iteratively via community reviews and cognitive interviews to establish content and face validity. Adolescents (N=355) completed a questionnaire that included the revised MHL items. The scales (Recognition/Identification, Influence/Critical Analysis, and Action/Reaction) were validated using Rasch measurement models. Convergent validity was assessed by correlating the summed scores of the three scales with existing functional and internet-related health literacy measures. Criterion validity was assessed by modeling logistic regressions for predicting health literacy-related behaviors from each scale after controlling for demographics. Effect sizes were estimated, and a short form was also validated.ResultsThe final MHL scales (Recognition/Identification, Influence/Critical Analysis, and Action/Reaction) fit their Rasch models. The 9-item Recognition/Identification and 9-item Influence/Critical Analysis scales had good convergent validity with functional and internet-related health literacy measures and were positively related to reading instructions before taking medicines and questioning the truthfulness of health information found online. The 12-item MHL Scales-Short Form also had good convergent and criterion validity. However, convergent and criterion validity were not established for the 3-item Action/Reaction Scale.ConclusionsThe Recognition/Identification and Influence/Critical Analysis scales and the MHL Scales-Short Form may be used to determine the impact of MHL on media use and health outcome relationships and ultimately inform the development of interventions and policies to affect these relationships in multiple settings.

Dataset Information

Implementing a Replicable Model for K-12 Health Literacy to Promote Positive Youth Development.

Publications

Implementing a Replicable Model for K-12 Health Literacy to Promote Positive Youth Development.

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