Conclusion There seems little doubt that literacy practitioners can, and do, contribute to improving health literacy. This in turn assists in tackling health inequalities. However, many literacy practitioners may not be aware that they do this and will probably not describe their outcomes in health terms – certainly not in health terms that resonate with public health practitioners. Nonetheless there is great scope for collaboration and for helping public health practitioners to realise the significant contribution that literacy practitioners can make to health literacy and health improvement. The Skilled for Health programme is one possible platform to bring this about, as is the transfer of many public health functions into local authorities.
However, despite all these promising opportunities, there seems to be very patchy evidence that anything of this sort is yet happening systematically. Public health is still settling into its new role within local authorities and not yet really thinking about its relationship with adult learning. Is this an opportunity for literacy practitioners? The CHLF certainly thinks so and in the lead up to the next general election will be ensuring that all the key spokespeople in the main political parties are made aware of the role that literacy practitioners can play in addressing health literacy.
References Berry, et al. (2009) Skilled for Health; Making the Case. London: Department of Education and Skills. The European Health Literacy Survey (2012)
HLS.EU. The European Health Literacy Project 2009-2012
HTTP://WWW.HEALTH-LITERACY.EU Garbers S, Chiasson M.A. (2004) 'Inadequate Functional Health Literacy in Spanish as a Barrier to Cervical Cancer Screening among Immigrant Latinas in New York City', in Preventing Chronic Disease, 1(4):A07. Kickbusch, I (ed.) et al (2013). The Solid Facts. Copenhagen: WHO. Available in PDF Here Marmot, M (2010) Fair Society, Healthy Lives. London: Univeristy College London. Nielsen-Bohlman, L., Panzer, A., Kindig, D.A (Eds) (2004). Health Literacy: A Prescription to End Confusion. Washington DC: National Academies Press. Nutbeam D (2008). 'The evolving concept of Health Literacy' in the Journal of Social Science and Medicine. 67 (12) 2072-2078. HMSO, Department of Health (2007). Departmental Report 2007. London: London Stationery Office. Tavistock Institute (2009) Evaluation of the Second phase of the Skilled for Health Programme. Williams M.V, Baker DW, Honig E.G, Lee T.M, Nowlan A (1998). 'Inadequate literacy is a barrier to asthma knowledge and self-care.' Chest. 1998; 114:1008–15
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