Health promotion during the pandemic is an essential precaution that needs to be taken as it is important that individuals are equipped with the knowledge to take preventative measures to protect themselves and others.This is also what is refered to as health literacy. What seems to be overlooked is that not all people equally equiped with the necessary skills to understand the information being communicated. Think about it. Put yourself in a situation where you have issues with reading and writing. Would you be able to confidently state that you have concretely understood all the information being presented in relation to COVID-19 ? The answer is probably not.

everyone can be affected

Before diving any further I would like to emphazie that having limited health literacy has the potential of affecting anyone.In fact when it comes to matters about health, it is very likely that if you are not a medical professional, you will make a mistake when interpreting information related to health. This is especially the case when consider that in recent times we have been bombarded with information from all sorts of sources using all sorts of complex terms such as incubation period, Asymptomatic, and flattening the curve. Trully, most of us will have difficulty denying that we haven’t looked up in confusion atleast once when trying to understand some of the information. What is is extremely important to note however is that the factors contributing to the misunderstanding of health information may be especially perpetuated in individuals with low literacy. The consequences of this are devestating ! This is especially the case when we take into account that a lack of health information may lead to an individual not taking the necessary measures to protect themselves. Personally I think it is a major problem that not having a strong foundation in education has the pontential to influence your health outcome in a negative way. Imagine not being able to understand the severity of the COVID-19 virus and the impact it has on your body, simply because you misunderstood or did not understand what was being communicated ?

Contested topic

Interestingly, this topic is quite contested as some scholars believe that literacy and health literacy are not interconnected. They base this claim on the findings that even the most educated societies seem to score poorly when it comes to health literacy. However, it is my personal belief that when you poses an adequate foundation in literacy you increase your chances of making well informed health decisions. This is because literacy is an important factor in assisting an individual recognize how and where to access reliable sources of information.

“health care is vital to all of us some of the time, but public health is vital to all of us all of the time”

C.Everett Koop

Social responsibility

Ladies and gentlemen I would now like to remind you that the highest attainable standard of health is a fundemental right of every human being. The World Health Organization (WHO) confirms this. But how exactly can one obtain the highest attainable standerd of health when one is not able to access life-saving information because they struggle to read and right ? It is for this reason that we should focus our efforts on making sure that information should be presented in a comprehensible manner.

Does this topic spark your interest ?

Some of you may be more curious as to how exactly illiteracy can prevent an individual from receiving adequete information that can be used to help to take preventative measures. In the next section of my blog I will use some examples to show some of the difficulties that can be faced by individuals who are low literate.

Hope to see you there 🙂