Effective Communication and Health Literacy in Healthcare Settings

This essay explores the crucial interplay between effective communication and health literacy within healthcare settings, particularly focusing on the importance of a culturally safe environment. It addresses the philosophy underpinning these concepts and their practical application, especially for new healthcare staff. The paper defines health literacy and examines its impact on patient care, highlighting the connection between health literacy and access to healthcare facilities. It discusses the rationale for staff orientation, emphasizing the need to integrate modern medicine with traditional knowledge. The essay also explores key themes such as reducing health disparities and discrepancies in healthcare access, and the importance of communication skills and cultural competence. The paper emphasizes the need to incorporate cultural competence and health literacy due to their interdependence and intersection. The conclusion summarizes the key findings, emphasizing that effective communication and health literacy are interconnected and dynamic, and are not static. The essay also provides references to relevant literature.

Running head: EFFECTIVE COMMUNICATION AND HEALTH LITERACY
EFFECTIVE COMMUNICATION AND HEALTH LITERACY
Name of student:
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1EFFECTIVE COMMUNICATION AND HEALTH LITERACY
Part 2
Introduction
Health literacy has been understood be a shared function of the individual and social
factors that are important for communication and evaluation of the skills of people in their
interaction with the individuals. There has been discussions on the communication process
and relationships that persist between the healthcare providers and the consumers who are
considered an important part of the healthy literacy environment that includes the elements of
decision making process and incorporation of the information to the needs of the individual.
The aim of this paper is to discuss about the philosophy underpinning effective
communication and health literacy in a culturally safe environment. The target audience to
whom this will be applicable is the new staff at the workplace.
Discussion
Importance of effective communication and health literacy in a culturally safe
environment
The term health literacy refers to the impact of health on the quality and safety
through determinant of health and healthcare. Although there has been an increasing
awareness regarding health and its attributes, however thee is not fixed definition about
health (Yap, Reavley & Jorm, 2012). There have been debates on whether health literacy is
understood to be on the individual level or whether it incorporates. Another understanding
pertaining to health literacy is that it has complex connotations and there multiple skill
categories and tools that are used in health literacy (Mårtensson & Hensing, 2012). There has
been debates over the definitions of healthcare literacy where it has been understood
something that comprises of a theory of behaviour change. There were a set of early

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definition on healthcare that underscore the notion on the ability of the consumers and
patients to have print-based information. One of the decisions related to the health literacy is
that there should be the working knowledge of health by an individual, they should have the
knowledge to make use of technology, make use of social media interaction and know about
social networking, possess the self efficacy and have the necessary motivation of for fostering
political action regarding the different kinds of health issues. (Parket et al., 2014). In certain
health literacy frameworks, the ability to navigate health services have been subsumed.
According to the view of some scholars health literacy refers to the ability and awareness of
an individual to explore and explain the differences between the different culture of the
public and the health system. The notion of health literacy further indicates the awareness and
ability of an individual to reduce the power imbalance that exist between the public and the
health system. The most commonly used understanding of health literacy it is a tool for
attaining deeper control on health and the large
It has been found that there has been a steady increase in health literacy in the past
few years. Studies have shown that there is a correlation between health literacy and the
access of patients to the healthcare facilities. It has been found that patients with low health
literacy experience less understanding about the given situation of their health, makes poor
use of the healthcare facilities and services available to them and have poorer adherence to
the medical regimes. In addition, they have poor understanding of the complex nature of their
health problems. They also face the problems of low understanding the utilization of
preventive services and have poorer overall health status.

3EFFECTIVE COMMUNICATION AND HEALTH LITERACY
Rationale for the presentation- As discussed in the introductory section this essay, the
rationale behind this presentation is to conduct a staff orientation at anew workplace where
they would explained about the philosophy embedding the effectiveness of communication
and health literacy in a culturally sae health environment. According to the Calgary Charter,
health literacy is applicable to all individuals including the consumers of healthcare. Health
literacy propagates the importance of valuing one’s health both through biomedical and
aboriginal knowledge (Slewa-Younan et l., 2014). This underscore the integration that is
required in dealing with health cases infusing the principles of modern scientific medicine
and the intricate knowledge of the localized and traditional medicine. Some of the pertinent
themes in health literacy are reduction of health disparities that relates to the pluralistic and
culturally diverse populations. Healthcare professionals can be taught to become competent
and will enable in addressing the unequal information shared between the healthcare provider
and the patient. Health professionals have the ability to reduce health disparities and
discrepancies in the access to healthcare (Lambert & Keogh, 2014). This can be
accomplished through the culture possessed by the health professionals as well as biases and
assumptions pervasive in the health profession. Another way this could be accomplished is
through the appropriate communication skills and the utilization of the resources and
addressal of the cultural differences, power dynamics, hierarchy, and the low level of health
literacy. It has been found that there is a lack of emphasis between health literacy and the
health communication in the existing body of literature. Although effective communication
and health are closely associated with each other, yet they are distinct concepts. Effective
communication concerns with the process of exchange of the of information in which health
literacy is used as set of skills and abilities. On the other hand, health literacy has been
understood as an intrinsic a part of communication. Effective communication has been
perceived as a mediator between the within the healthcare service provider and the patient

4EFFECTIVE COMMUNICATION AND HEALTH LITERACY
interaction relating to health literacy and the outcomes of health. Scholars have identified
certain elements that are important for effective communication.. This includes speaking,
listening and negotiating the dimensions of various kinds of healthcare with the patients.
There is an emphasis on the skills of the individual in terms of the critical assessment of the
plight of the patient. It has be stated by scholars that one may possess the necessary attributes
to master the art of effective communication but the same person may not have the adequate
knowledge about the different aspects of health (Sørensen et al., 2012). Therefore,
communications skills are not directly proportional to health literacy. Scholars have
emphasized on a the adoption of a conceptual model of health literacy that integrates the
culture, language, social capital for the appropriate and holistic conceptualization of health
literacy. It has been seen that there is an increasing move for the integration of cultural
competence and health literacy. However, scholars have warned there should not be any
obfuscation of the health literacy and effective communication. Therefore, it is important to
incorporate health literacy and communication owing to the interdependence and intersection
between the concepts of cultural competence with health communication and health literacy.
However, there are limitations of the definition of health literacy. This includes the
assumption of the socio-cultural contexts of the western societies and decontexualization
therefore, missing the nuances. It’s important to incorporate culture and language to
understand their role in health literacy. It is important to view health literacy as a dynamic
process rather than static process (Hibbard & Greene, 2013). Health literacy comprises of a
broad range of definitions and has immense scope for those interested in health studies and
medical sociology. Health literacy measures have initially been text based. In the recent
literature oral communication skills have been considered as an integral component of
healthcare literacy. Another type of measurement that has been included in the health literacy
assessment tools is system navigation. According to scholars these measures are insufficient

5EFFECTIVE COMMUNICATION AND HEALTH LITERACY
in the commonly used screening tools ti evaluate the relationship between communication
and information between the systems and the healthcare professionals. There have been
suggestions from the scholars that different tools should evaluate different kinds of
communication skills, the health care system and the larger society. However, these has been
criticism regarding the measurement of health literacy at the individual level of the consumer.
The measurement of health literacy in the clinical settings is important for the maintenance of
effective communication. Another group of scholars argue that effective communication need
to be embraced in case of a clinical setting to eliminate the barriers that pose hindrance in
accessing barriers (Fischhoff, 2012). Recently, it has been found that a number of literacies
adopt a framework that is crucial in understanding health literacy. In order to address health
literacy in a coordinated manner it is important to embed the values if health literacy in the
organizational practises and policies and also in the high-level systems.
Conclusion
Therefore based on the above findings it can be stated that effective communication
are both useful. Effective communication and health literacy are interconnected but a
healthcare practitioner needs to look after the welfare hence thee are consternations and
disagreements. Heath literacy is a dynamic process and is not static. Measurement have used
to find out the IQ and EG f enact of the patients. The authors have framework for intervening
into the process of health and medicine. Healthcare professional are trained to become
empathic and manifest benevolence in transferring the information to the others. People who
are located at the lower rungs of the hierarchy lack health literacy and therefore, are deprived
and discriminated from the healthcare services.

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References
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