What links low health literacy and risk of cardiovascular disease?
Cardiovascular disease is the most common cause of death worldwide. A big share of the world population will face at least one of the cardiovascular issues that fall under CVD in their lifetime, which include stroke and coronary heart disease among other problems. If you would like more detailed information about CVD and its causes information about CVD I recommend visiting the NHS page on the topic.
The risk someone has of getting cardiovascular disease is determined in large part by lifestyle factors, as can be found on the website I link to above. It stands to reason that for this reason, and because cardiovascular disease takes so many lives every year, getting information about the lifestyle choices and changes people can make to reduce their risk of CVD is critical. With small adjustments much suffering can be prevented.
A barrier
I hope you’re now as convinced as I am of the importance of communicating ways to improve lifestyle and with that cardiovascular health. However, as one can imagine, getting this information to absolutely everyone can be difficult. One major barrier in that sense is that some people have limited (health) literacy, which can be taken to mean someone’s ability to digest medical information and put it into practise in their life. Studies (example) have shown that there is a link between CVD and low health literacy.
Basically, if you have limited health literacy, this tends to mean that you have a higher risk profile for cardiovascular conditions. This can be attributed to other factors than just a person’s health literacy, such as socioeconomic position or general care for their health even. However, the same study I gave as an example earlier, also looked into what effect extra nurse-coordinated care has. This proved to be a significant improvement in risk profile, both in low-health literate and health-literate patients. What I think we should take away from there not being a difference between those groups is that when the patients have the information, they do all act on it. That means that it really is a lack of understanding of information that makes them more at risk, rather than other factors, I would argue
What can be done?
I think it is clear that it is very important that we figure out how to get CVD information to people with limited health literacy. But how do we go about this? I will discuss that in another post, if you’re interested.
I hope this has been an interesting read, feel free to share any thoughts below!
Informative introduction to the issue!
I am wondering what exactly you refer to with nurse-coordinated care and if you could clarify the link it has to the improved risk profile?
This is not necessarily an issue with how you wrote it, just my own ignorance!
Thank you Amanda!
First of all, I will still go into this area a bit in my next post. but I’m not sure if i will touch on this a lot so i will give you the best answer i can. In a nurse-coordinated care program, the patient is helped along in their treatment (think of being given information, and regular check-ups next to regular care) but they differ wildly between them. For this reason, i think, the study I link to is quite vague on the details. still, it might give some better insight into the topic.
As for how it helps, studies have simply found it to be more effective than regular care. I looked into it, and I found the following study going into common components of NCCPs: https://heart.bmj.com/content/102/1/50
I hope this makes it clearer, and if it doesn’t, let me know and I’ll gladly do some more digging on the topic
Thank you, this was very sufficient indeed!
Hello Jasper! Very interesting post!
I do have one question, though. Considering my topic, low-literacy levels in Spain, I have noted that they are fueled by and fuel socio-economic inequalities. Is there a connection between income and literacy levels also regarding CVC? If not, are there groups of people more at risk of not being informed on the risks of the situation?
Thanks Anna!
This is one of those things I left out to keep it small, and because i didnt have a direct enough source to prove it. There is, however, a study performed in the US that showed that the lower one’s education level the more lifetime risk of a cardiovascular condition (https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamainternalmedicine/article-abstract/2630755 if you want to see it). Since education, literacy and income levels are all somewhat linked, this does indeed prove a connection to me.
Also, groups that are especially at risk as well are for example migrants from more rural areas or countries, both because literacy tends to be lower and because they go from an active lifestyle to a less active one.
Hope this answers your question!
Yes, it does! Very interesting, thank you very much Jasper 😊
You discuss a serious problem, keeping it very “light” (like light butter or light cola, following the lexicon of your topic). I was wondering: what kind of literacy policy would be possible in order to reduce CVC? And to which extent do these problems really depend on literacy issues, or rather on more general lifestyle choices?
Thanks for your questions Charles! I will address the second question first, because I think that it’s relevant to the first. In this specific area of research, health literacy is usually defined as knowing about the relevant health information, but applying it in practise as well. Also based on all the research establishing a link between low health literacy and CVD-risk, I think we can conclude that the more a person knows about the healthier lifestyle choices they can make and why they should, the more they do actually make them.
Now, as for what can be done, that will be the topic of my second post. However, I can give a surface-level answer now. This issue is primarily one of education, so a possible step is to have guest classes at schools and such things. Another element is how to help patients already in treatment. Research has proven that doctors can show graphs, pictures etc. rather than just explaining what the patient could improve verbally. This improves retention and adherence. But i will go into that in further detail in my post.
Hopefully I’ve answered your questions!