Keynote #2

Promoting Health Literacy: What does that mean in 2020

Janet Ohene-Frempong

What is health literacy?

If you can't define it, you can't promote it

"The degree to which individuals have the capacity to obtain, process, and understand health information and services needed to make appropriate health decisions" (Ratzan and Parker 2004)

A simple (better?) way of explaining health literacy:

"Your ability to figure out what's needed for you, and others, to stay alive and as well as possible" (Ohene-Frempong)

#healthliteracy #MedTwitter

Health Inequities make it hard to stay alive and well

-Quality education
-Quality housing
-Safe environments
-Good jobs/Fair pay
-Personal transportation
-Healthy food

What makes it hard to live while Black:

-Driving while black
-Reaching for your license/reg
-Walking through a white neighborhood
-Sleeping in your own house
-Bird watching
-Paying with a $20 bill

Surviving everyday life requires a good degree of health literacy

Surviving in the age of COVID-19 and Racial Turmoil requires health literacy on steroids

Let's all stan Dr. Anthony Fauci

Fundamental Literacy

Refers to the skills and strategies involved in reading, speaking, writing, and numeracy

Maybe someone not getting it has more to do with the author not knowing how to write it, not the reader's comprehension level

Written materials are highly useful:

-time, cost, convenience for large volumes of info
-accessible for those without internet
-useful as back-up to verbal information
-useful as back-up to videos and podcasts