Abstract
Health literacy is one of the most critical issues threating the public health today and there are significant gaps behind the discipline of health literacy. Low health literacy was found to threaten the health and welfare of people. The past decades witnessed a revolutionary alteration in the health patterns and disease spread among the community from infectious diseases to chronic diseases such as, heart disease, stroke, cancer, diabetes and accidents. Furthermore, to enhance health status among the population with effective intervention methods, through health teaching, increasing access to health information and communication technologies will eliminate the health literacy consequences among different community levels, including children and adults. The aim of the present review was to find out the current status about research progress towards health literacy. Furthermore, to examine health literacy status, intervention, possible consequences and future prospective, and to find out the options for improving health literacy status and fill in the future research. A systematic review based on literature research related to health literacy covered the recent publication from 2000 to 2014 years. The results indicated that the wide range opportunities for improving health literacy are coming through health literacy intervention among target community. Future research concerning health literacy is still needed to give much more efforts in the field of community and community health works. Key words: Health literacy, intervention, knowledge and community health.
Highlights
IntroductionHealth literacy is “the degree to which individuals can obtain, process, and understand the basic health information and services, to make appropriate health decisions”
Health literacy is “the degree to which individuals can obtain, process, and understand the basic health information and services, to make appropriate health decisions”.It needs interpersonal skills for effective health care systems
Based on the literature review, we found significant evidence of limited health literacy skills in children and community level, in response to situation of a million adults world-wide still struggling from low health literacy and difficult in understanding even the basic health information
Summary
Health literacy is “the degree to which individuals can obtain, process, and understand the basic health information and services, to make appropriate health decisions”. It needs interpersonal skills for effective health care systems. These skills include information, ability to interpret documents, read and write prose (print literacy), use the quantitative information (numeracy), and speak and listen effectively (oral literacy). Health literacy has been described "as the ability to read, understand and act on health information, which means promote good health, reduce health risks through the strength of primary health care providers, in order to develop health literacy of patients, and change patient lifestyle. Health literacy was a "key outcome from health education”, which aim to reduce the consequence of health among the population (Nutbeam, 2000; Nutbeam and Kickbusch, 2000; Dennis et al., 2012)
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