Impact Of Low Literacy Research Articles

The Fate and Management of Sick and Dying Cattle - Consequences on Small-Scale Dairy Farmers of Peri-Urban Areas in India.

Background:The livestock plays an important role in the economy of farmers. The mismanagement of sick and dying cattle leads to an increase in sanitation cost of municipalities, incidences of diseases by exposed carcasses, and hence more expenditure on avoidable health catastrophes.Objective:The objective is to study the fate of sick and failing cattle and their detailed management regarding disposal of dead cattle.Materials and Methods:The qualitative research approach was used. The dual strategies of purposive sampling and snowballing were employed to identify potential respondents. The study was conducted 15 in-depth interviews among smallholder dairy farmers, scientists, officials of National Dairy Research Institute (NDRI), municipality officials, and veterinarians in peri-urban areas of Karnal, Haryana, located in North India. Data were analyzed based on the contents of these audio-recorded interviews. The recordings have transcribed and translated. After translation completion, a content analysis was performed manually to identify emerging themes and interconnections.Results:This article highlighted three core themes such as impact of low literacy and awareness levels, role of informal forms of disposal, and preference of informal channels over municipality.Conclusions:There is a gap in current practices and management of sick and dying cattle. Small-scale farmers prefer to dispose their cattle in an informal way. It needs to improve animal welfare by modeling guidelines for disposal of dead cattle and its consequences pertaining to zoonoses.

Innovative use of a standardized debriefing guide to assist in the development of a research questionnaire with low literacy demands

Prevalence and impact of low literacy has resulted in greater attention to developing written materials at lower reading levels for both patient education and research. The purpose of this study was to develop and evaluate how well a research questionnaire about self-management preferences, intentionally developed as a tool for individuals with low literacy skills, performed. The investigators created a standardized debriefing guide to evaluate comprehension and ease of instrument completion to accompany the administration of the Conventional and Alternative Management for Asthma (CAMA) instrument. The use of a standardized debriefing guide following cognitive interviewing techniques, allowed for the identification of problematic words, unclear meanings and confusion over scaling despite a deliberate attempt to develop a tool with low literacy demands. Such approaches might be considered critically important to insure the accuracy of patient-reported outcomes when self-administered tools are used to collect research and clinical data.

Literacy, Cognitive Ability, and the Retention of Health-Related Information About Colorectal Cancer Screening

Interventions to mitigate the impact of low literacy on patients' recall of information by simplifying language have had limited success. The current study examines the extent to which cognition explains the relationship between literacy and retention of health information. Primary care patients aged 40 to 85 years watched a video about colorectal cancer (CRC) screening and then answered knowledge-based questions about the video's content as well as a literacy assessment and cognitive assessments measuring processing speed, working memory, and-long term memory. A week later, available participants completed the knowledge assessment a second time. In regression models for immediate knowledge, literacy significantly predicted knowledge. However, once cognition (i.e., processing speed, working memory, and long-term memory) was added to the model, it explained 70.7% of the relationship between literacy and performance. A week later, literacy again significantly predicted knowledge, but entering cognition into the model explained 45.9% of the relationship between literacy and performance. These results suggest that cognition explains much of the association between literacy and both immediate and delayed recall of health information. Design and intervention strategies for educational tools should consider cognitive factors such as working memory demands in addition to focusing on the readability of materials.

Improving Rates of Cervical Cancer Screening and Pap Smear Follow-Up for Low-Income Women with Limited Health Literacy

Adult literacy is an independent and important predictor of health behavior. In 1993, the National Adult Literacy Survey conducted by the U.S. Department of Education demonstrated that one-third of the U.S. population over age 16 (44 million adults) is functionally illiterate. Several studies link low health literacy to self-reported poor health status, poor health behavior, and inadequate knowledge about disease. Epidemiologic studies of cancer prevention have not detected strong racial and ethnic disparities in disease detection and progression, resulting in an emphasis on behavioral and intervention-based research. Low literacy presents a wide-reaching barrier to disease prevention that, unlike race/ethnicity, is potentially modifiable. Here, we explore the relationship between health literacy and health behaviors related to cervical cancer prevention in an effort to address concerns about low rates of screening and follow-up in vulnerable populations. Our goal is to improve our understanding of the health impact of low literacy among urban women and to inspire interventions that will promote disease prevention behaviors in this population, particularly with regard to cervical cancer.