Abstract
Although health literacy is widely discussed and many heterogeneous conceptualizations exist, people with intellectual disabilities have remained largely unconsidered. The purpose of this conceptual paper is to analyze the particularities of this target group and discuss and consider implications that arise when conceptualizing the health literacy of people with intellectual disabilities. Therefore, we explore relevant approaches from multiple disciplines and examine their transferability to a conceptual understanding of health literacy for people with intellectual disabilities. For future directions we identified three main dimensions: (1) disentangle health literacy from empowerment; (2) apply a positive, asset-based focus to health literacy; and (3) focus on health literacy as a distributed resource across individuals and their individual life-world.
Highlights
Health literacy has received much attention at the research, practice and policy level
In order to give an overview of what is already known about the topic, we will present two popular and much-cited models of health literacy, we will cite the current research evidence for health literacy among people with intellectual disabilities and focus on them and their relation to health-related behavior and decision-making
Health literacy research that has targeted people with intellectual disabilities has mostly focused on functional health literacy dimensions or on increasing health-related knowledge through the provision of information [25]
Summary
Health literacy has received much attention at the research, practice and policy level. We discuss the urgent need for regarding the specific needs of people with intellectual disabilities in current health literacy research and debates. That health literacy research can benefit from the inclusion of this special group. We want to highlight approaches and concepts that can further enrich future research on health literacy of people with intellectual disabilities, emphasizing the need to consider the specific characteristics of this target group. A special emphasis is put on how health literacy is currently implemented in practice and which successes have been achieved in the target group. The paper discusses what is missing in the development of a specific health literacy concept for people with intellectual disabilities
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