communication that I will be discussing in my talk including the impact of new technologies.”
So, what can be done to change the landscape? It is likely to be a mix of interventions – including knowledge sharing for projects that are working well (another good reason to attend ICML and forge international connections). Steven says that other blockers are impacting health literacy development and calls for improved understanding of how to tackle these problems.
Professor Steven Buchanan.
tent (both physical and digital).” Steven’s research delves into informa- tion behaviour and the impact that has on health literacy levels. He points out that manycountriesaresufferingwithlow health literacy, saying: “In general terms I would describe health literacy in the UK as low, particularly critical aspects but more basic functional aspects are also of concern in much of the general popula- tion, with no substantial improvements foreseeable based on current policy and practice. Studies from comparable nations are, in general, similarly downbeat.” Steven points to a number of factors for these low levels, saying: “Whilst health literacy is widely recognised as a key determinant of health and now enshrined in health policy worldwide, there appears to be a gulf between policy and practice.” He adds that there are many local exam- ples of good practice aimed at improving health literacy, but these have not been scaled meaning wider impact cannot be delivered.
Away from policy, personal motivation can have a huge impact on health literacy. Steven points to a split between those who do not recognise their need to be informed and those who recognise a need, but are not motivated to seek it out, which can sometimes be linked to fear over a perceived risk.
This is often where information profes- sionals can have the biggest impact, as Steven says: “For the former (awareness of need), factors of attention and relevance are important, for the latter (action on need), capacity to process information is important, and is of course highly variable on an individual basis.
“It is thus important to view health communication and education as a constructive incremental process that takes account of the variable cognitive andaffectivefactorsinfluencingpeople’s information behaviours and actions, not least when concerning sensitive and pos- sibly complex issues of personal health. These are enduring challenges for health
30 INFORMATION PROFESSIONAL
“Mis/disinformation now has a nega- tive impact upon almost every aspect of people’s lives,” says Steven, “and in global terms, is recognised as a major long-term risk to population health and wellbeing including the undermining of trust in public institutions. Emergent AI-tech- nologies are rapidly compounding the issue through the growth of manipulative and misleading AI-generated content. AI (and social media) technologies are also increasinglyinfluencingourinformation behaviours including how we source and process health information. These are extremely challenging times for public health communication and education. “As I noted earlier there appears to be a gulf between policy and practice. This arguably includes a narrow focus on basic communicative and functional aspects of health literacy with limited atten- tion to the development of critical skills important for population empowerment including to address issues of mis/disin- formation. In relation, across the various stakeholder groups there are issues of remit/role and professional competencies, time, and resources when considering who would bridge this gap between policy and practice, and how.”
And for those delegates at this year’s Congress, Steven says: “Whilst discussing significantcomplexchallengesforthe profession, I hope to also convey, from a human information behaviour perspec- tive, the increasing importance of the professionforeffectivehealthcommuni-
cation and education. This will include the key challenges that I believe the profes- sion are best placed to address.”
Lucy Aphramor
Lucy is a radical dietician and EDI con- sultant who has worked across the NHS, third sector, academia, and independently, building knowledge from clinical and community dietetic posts, disability advocacy, work with LGBTQ+ groups, and others, plus personal experience of food and body struggles. They are co-founder of the World Critical Dietetics movement with a PhD in Critical Dietetics and have served on expert groups including the European Federation of the Association of Dietitians Public Health Nutrition Committee and the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE), They worked as a Size Awareness Consult- ant for the Welsh Assembly Government and hold the British Dietetic Association Roll of Honour Award.
Lucy Aphramor.
Lucy’s keynote, “Who Is Healthy Eating Advice for? Cultivating Equity by Recon- sidering ‘Neutral’,” looks at mainstream public health nutrition messages and asks whether they are really truly equitable andeffective.Theysaythattheirwon journeyofquestioningtheeffectiveness and fairness of these messages grew from real world experience of working as a dietician. Lucysays:“Prettysoonintomyfirst dietetic post I realised that my ‘weight management’ interventions didn’t lead to predicted weight change, and moreover, were clearly a cause of distress i.e. adverse impact.Manypeoplehadbeenonandoff diets most of their adult lives and seeking caloriedeficit–again–feltinappropriate, and often seemed an inadequate response given pervasive self-blame and shame, and wider life circumstances and eating histories they were dealing with. “I also learnt that size discrimination – what I’d now recognise as fatmisia, or systemic anti-fatness – was ubiquitous in and beyond healthcare, and I was becom- ing concerned that my own approach was adding to unhelpful stereotyped thinking.” Lucy looked at the available data on accepted ideas around weight loss and nutrition and says they discovered accepted guidelines did not support the data around outcomes. Local data backed up that view, with 97 per cent of inter- ventions ending in “failure”. Lucy says that they were troubled by what they found, saying this led to a change in how they approached diet and weight loss, saying: “Once I realised the conventional approach caused harm and was therefore unethical I started to develop another approach that initially focused on self- care behaviours instead of the pursuit of weight loss, and later was also shaped by data that showed how non-nutrient
June-July 2026
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