The missing link: Towards an integrated health and information literacy research agenda

Abstract

Information forms one of the main commonalities shared between definitions of health literacy. However, information literacy research, which centres how people become informed within a specific setting, has been almost completely sidelined from health literacy scholarship. This oversight risks limiting understanding of how health literacy is practised as well as narrowing research discourses. It also forms a missed opportunity as the recent sociocultural turn creates a valuable point of synergy between each field. This paper carries out a narrative literature review to identify key areas where information literacy research could help to extend understanding about how people interact with information within health contexts. Centred on exploring theoretical and empirical work, the paper uses examples from literature to suggest that assumptions related to how information, models of information use, social dynamics of information environments, the outcomes of information activity and critical approaches to information practice are understood impact the scope and the reach of health literacy research and practice. The goal of this paper is to establish an initial, shared research agenda that places health and information literacy in dialogue rather than in isolation from each other.