Page 27 - Health Literacy, eHealth, and Communication: Putting the Consumer First: Workshop Summary

Health Literacy, eHealth, and Communication: Putting the Consumer First: Workshop Summary

HeALtH LiteRACY, eHeALtH, AnD CoMMUniCAtion

guage form and requires a new set of skills to fully understand it (Logan,
2000). The eHealth literacy definition is framed in terms of action because
if one is looking for information about a health problem, one is looking
not just for information but for actions that one can take in order to solve
a health problem.
Two types of skills are needed for eHealth: general skills and specific
skills. General skills apply to a number of different contexts and settings
and include traditional literacy (reading, writing, and numeracy), media
literacy (media analysis skills), and information literacy (information seek-
ing and understanding). Specific skills include such things as computer
literacy (IT skills), health literacy (health knowledge comprehension), and
science literacy (science process and outcome).
Four out of 10 Americans and Canadians have low literacy, making it
difficult for them to function in everyday society (Rubenson et al., 2007;
Statistics Canada, 2005). Thus in the case of eHealth interventions that are
largely text-based, 4 out of every 10 people who might benefit from the
intervention will have a great deal of difficulty reading the material. In
the case of mathematical literacy (numeracy), one-quarter of U.S. 15-year-
olds scored at or below the lowest proficiency level (Miller et al., 2007). To
the extent that eHealth involves simple mathematical calculations such as
addition or subtraction, or an understanding of numbers, those with low
numeracy skills will likely find it difficult to understand the information
presented. Such individuals will also have difficulty reading maps or
understanding simple charts.
Media literacy refers to the skills necessary to think critically and to
act based on information from media-based messages. Media literacy
places information in a social and political context and considers issues
such as the marketplace, audience relations, and the role of the medium
in the message. Those with low media literacy lack awareness of bias or
perspective in media pronouncements, both in terms of what is presented
and what is not presented. They also have difficulty understanding that
the media has both explicit and implied messages and they have difficulty
deriving meaning from media messages.
The third general skill involved in eHealth literacy, information lit-
eracy, involves a more general understanding of information. An infor-
mation literate person knows “how knowledge is organized, how to find
information, and to use information in a way that others can learn from
them” (American Library Association Presidential Committee on Informa-
tion Literacy, 1989). Those with low information literacy are unable to see
connections between information from multiple sources such as books,
pamphlets, and websites. They are, therefore, unable to understand that
one may have to triangulate pieces of information from various sources
to build an entire picture of the subject about which they are seeking

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