Assignment Part I
The American College Health Association largely crusades for the engagement of highly qualified health promotion experts in such institutions. Such professionals should be responsible for the creation of patient education learning materials and the evaluation of health literacy and health literacy instruction materials, and ensure that all the documents they prepare are readable enough to themselves, the patients and other health experts. These should be done through well-laid procedures particularly encompassing the assessment and approval of health literacy instruction materials, as well as the examination of the available learning materials (U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Office of Disease Prevention and Health Promotion, 2010). The experts are also expected to establish specific health promotion strategic plans in line with institutional values and missions (Glanz, Rimer & Viswanath, 2015). In essence, assigning such roles to a health expert would undoubtedly help address difficulties, such as the possibility of poor health promotional ethics in the institutions.
Assignment Part 2
I performed a Short Assessment of Health Literacy – English (SAHL – E) test on a 59-year old Black American woman with high school being their highest level of education. However, she confessed to have been working in a hospital setup for a better part of her life as a cleaner and just retired a couple of years ago. She currently stays with her two adult daughters, who take care of her. The SAHL-E tool would be very essential in helping determine the health literacy of the interviewee (Glanz, Rimer & Viswanath, 2015). It was particularly designed to help examine the ability of English speakers of adult age to comprehend the basic terms used in the medical field. I presented to the interviewee a set of 18 flash cards, each containing a medical term and two connotation words printed on them. I then made them read the medical terms before reading out the other two words on each card to them, and asking them to identify which of them had a closer relationship with the main term. Their performance was then recorded in a score sheet. A correct answer for each of the 18 questions would be determined by both accurate elocution and association of words.
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The interviewee recorded a score of 12 out of 18. Usually, any score between 0 and 14 is treated as a case of low health literacy (Glanz, Rimer & Viswanath, 2015). As a result, the level of the health literacy of my interviewee could be termed as poor. However, the main limitation of the SAHL-E tool possibly lies in the choice of the words to present to the interviewee. Probably if another set of the basic medical terms were used, then the interviewee’s score would be better or even worse depending on the levels of their previous interactions with the words. Nonetheless, I did not carry out any additional assessment for the interviewee. In the end, both my interviewee and I exuded confidence and comfort in the assessment tool and process. I came to learn that some interviewees could, however, feel embarrassed and uncomfortable to provide their personal data and expose their ‘illiteracy’, thus, shying away from such a process.
Assignment Part 3
For this assignment, I have chosen to examine a health promotional document chapter titled Introduction to Health Education, Health Promotion and Theory (Hayden, 2013) . The document largely focuses on the study of health education, health behavior and the roles of health experts in health promotion (Hayden, 2013). I employed the FRY graph tool to determine the readability of the above-described health promotional document. In essence, I selected 3 random samples of about 100 words long passages and counted the number of sentences and syllables in the passages and plotted the relevant graphs to determine the readability of the entire document. Unfortunately, from the results, the document appeared to be too complicated for the ordinary patient/learner to comprehend, especially with regards to the choice of words.
With reference to the design appropriateness of the document, I would commend the author of the document for trying to make it easier to understand. For instance, nearly all the tabular and pictorial data presented in the document are very educational and not just pretty. There also exists sufficient white space due to proper split between the non-printed and printed areas. The choice of an appealing font type and size and the proper use of headers and lower/upper case combinations further add to the appropriateness of the document design or layout.
However, I have issues with the author’s choice of words and phrases in the document. In actual sense, most words and statements meant to explain basic procedures for the readers appear to be very complicated. The author ought to have settled for simpler words to help enhance the plain language requirement or aspect of health literacy (Osborne, 2010). Whereas some of the procedures and descriptions outlined in the text are meant to improve the literacy of the reader, its quite unfortunate that the information would not the comprehensible to some of the intended end readers. I would also appreciate the fact that the document meets the health literacy requirement of making use of an engaging tone. The author has indeed used a very friendly and chatty tone all through the text.
Assignment Part 4
I have always found the health promotion document handy in nursing practice as it presents a vast array of programs particularly meant to impart skills related to both health education and behavior. In addition, the document also advocates for the strengthening of the human resource department in the health sector as a way of building the global capacity for hands-on health promotional strategies. Prior to the assessment, I was fully convinced that the document was easy to comprehend and appropriate for health promotion. However, following the assessment, it came out clearly that the text would not be very clear to a section of the target readers, especially due to the choice of complicated words and phrases in some of its parts. I would, therefore, recommend that the document be made simpler and more understandable to the target readers (Osborne, 2010).
Indeed, health literacy is an outstandingly significant aspect of the nursing practice. From the assessment, I have therefore decided to be including the assessment of patient health literacy in all my future encounters with patients as a nurse. This would certainly help understand the needs of my patients and determine the courses of action to take to help better my practice and performance at work (Glanz, Rimer & Viswanath, 2015). Health promotion has recently become one of the most common areas of interest in the realm of public health. Therefore, institutions must take note of the need to fully comply with the world public health laws associated with health promotion.
References
Glanz, K., Rimer, B. & Viswanath, K. (2015). Health behavior: Theory, research, and practice . Washington, DC: John Wiley & Sons.
Hayden, J. (2013). Introduction to health education, health promotion, and theory. In Hayden, J. (Ed.), Introduction to health behavior theory (1 – 38). New York, NY: Jones & Bartlett Learning. Retrieved February 10, 2019, from http://samples.jbpub.com/9780763796112/96112_CH01_FINAL.pdf )
Osborne, H. (2010). Creating usable, useful health websites for readers at all levels (audio podcast). Health Literacy Out Loud, 34. Retrieved February 10, 2019, from www.healthliteracyoutloud.com/hlol-34-creating-usable-useful-health-websites-for-readers-at-all-levels .
U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Office of Disease Prevention and Health Promotion. (2010). National action plan to improve health literacy . Washington, DC. Retrieved February 10, 2019, from https://health.gov/communication/HLActionPlan/pdf/Health_Literacy_Action_Plan.pdf
