scholarly journals Health literacy practices in social virtual worlds and the influence on health behaviour

2018 ◽  
Vol 25 (4) ◽  
pp. 34-47 ◽  
Author(s):  
Evelyn McElhinney ◽  
Lisa Kidd ◽  
Francine M. Cheater
Keyword(s):  
Social Skills ◽  
Health Literacy ◽  
Health Information ◽  
Health Behaviour ◽  
Virtual World ◽  
Literacy Practices ◽  
Physical World ◽  
Social Model ◽  
World Health ◽  
Distributed Model

This study explored how health information accessed via a 3D social virtual world and the representation of ‘self’ through the use of an avatar impact physical world health behaviour. In-depth interviews were conducted in a sample of 25 people, across 10 countries, who accessed health information in a virtual world (VW): 12 females and 13 males. Interviews were audio-recorded via private in-world voice chat or via private instant message. Thematic analysis was used to analyse the data. The social skills and practices evidenced demonstrate how the collective knowledge and skills of communities in VWs can influence improvements in individual and community health literacy through a distributed model. The findings offer support for moving away from the idea of health literacy as a set of skills which reside within an individual to a sociocultural model of health literacy. Social VWs can offer a place where people can access health information in multiple formats through the use of an avatar, which can influence changes in behaviour in the physical world and the VW. This can lead to an improvement in social skills and health literacy practices and represents a social model of health literacy.

Health literacy

2020 ◽  
Vol 13 (8) ◽  
pp. 490-494
Author(s):  
Johanna Reilly
Keyword(s):  
Social Skills ◽  
Health Literacy ◽  
Health Information ◽  
Good Health ◽  
World Health Organisation ◽  
Poor Health ◽  
World Health ◽  
The World ◽  
Poor Health Literacy ◽  
Gain Access

Health literacy has been defined by the World Health Organisation as ‘The cognitive and social skills which determine the motivation and ability of individuals to gain access to, understand and use information in ways which promote and maintain good health.’ Doctors need to assess and take into account a patient’s health literacy when communicating information. Poor health literacy is more common than doctors may appreciate, and health information is often produced at a level that many people may struggle to understand.

scholarly journals Making health information meaningful: Children's health literacy practices

2016 ◽  
Vol 2 ◽  
pp. 476-484 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hannah Fairbrother ◽  
Penny Curtis ◽  
Elizabeth Goyder
Keyword(s):  
Health Literacy ◽  
Health Information ◽  
Literacy Practices ◽  
Children's Health ◽  
Children’S Health

scholarly journals Health information — relevance and accessibility (literature review)

2021 ◽  
Vol 65 (5) ◽  
pp. 498-502
Author(s):  
Oksana A. Pivovarova ◽  
Natalia N. Kamynina ◽  
Yulia N. Skulkina ◽  
Ekaterina O. Korotkova
Keyword(s):  
Health Literacy ◽  
Global Health ◽  
Health Information ◽  
Family Relationships ◽  
World Health ◽  
Cochrane Library ◽  
Health Coverage ◽  
Aim Analysis ◽  
Vast Number ◽  
Access To Health

Introduction. Health literacy directly impacts global health, social indicators, family relationships, and individual health behaviour. A fundamental element of an effective health system is information for the population on the protection and management of their health and those for whom they are responsible. As an essential skill, medical literacy is necessary for searching, understanding, and analyzing medical data from various sources. Improving people’s health literacy is critical to achieving responsibility for health. Aim. Analysis of the formation and impact of health literacy on the achievement of sustainable development and other health objectives. Material and methods. Literature search methods included search queries on Web of Science, Scopus, MedLine, The Cochrane Library databases. Results. Global access to essential health information is not reflected in official monitoring, indicating the need to improve access to health information to provide more effective care. The availability and use of reliable health information depend on the integrity of the global health information system. A systemic approach to the problem demonstrates the vital contribution of a vast number and variety of «components”, including health research, publication and dissemination of such research, systematic reviews, Development of guidelines and many different secondary outputs for users. Conclusion. Lack of access to health information is a social injustice that the world health community cannot afford to ignore. Access to essential health information is a prerequisite and a component of achieving universal health coverage.

scholarly journals Levels and Determinants of Health Literacy in Bahrain’s Community Context

2020 ◽  
Vol 35 (6) ◽  
pp. e195-e195
Author(s):  
G. V. Asokan ◽  
Mohamed Yaqoob Ali Yusuf ◽  
Richard Kirubakaran ◽  
Abdulaziz Mohamed Muqbel Albadwi ◽  
Ahmed Ebrahim Saad ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Social Skills ◽  
Health Literacy ◽  
Health Information ◽  
Community Context ◽  
Cross Sectional Survey ◽  
Chi Square ◽  
General Physician ◽  
Cross Sectional ◽  
Survey Tool ◽  
Self Rating

Objectives: We sought to assess health literacy (HL) and its associated factors in the Bahraini community using a validated HL scale and address its deficient domains to inform policy. Methods: We carried out a conveniently sampled, cross-sectional survey using the All Aspects of Health Literacy Scale in the Bahraini community. The scale has three key aspects: basic or functional HL (FUN-4 items), which corresponds to basic reading and writing skills, and knowledge of health conditions and health systems; communicative or interactive HL (COM-3 items) on communicative and social skills to extract information from different forms of communication; and critical HL (CR-4 items), the advanced cognitive and social skills to critically analyze information and exert greater control over life events and situations relating to individual and community level wellbeing goals. We examined the association between sociodemographic and health information for the survey tool items using the chi-square test. The relationship between total scale score and subscale scores of the three domains of the survey tool to sociodemographic and health information was investigated using the t-test and ANOVA. Results: Of the 836 participants (mean age = 26.6 years), single (64.0%) and university students (76.6%) were predominant; 15.6% reported long-term sickness and visited the general physician often. The highest mean item scores were for empowerment (1.8) and lowest for functional HL (0.1). The significant domain-specific responses to the survey tool items were 12 for critical HL, 10 for functional HL, six for communicative HL, and five for empowerment. Participants aged < 30 years old, female, married, pursuing/completed Master’s program, employed, and whose self-rating of health was excellent had higher total HL scores. Conclusions: Older, less educated respondents with a poor self-rating of health had low HL scores. We recommend further studies to address the relative importance of functional, interactive, and critical HL in the community to promote health outcomes.

scholarly journals The Improvement of Health Behavior: Collaboration among Health Information Access, Health Literacy and Health Empowerment Variable

2021 ◽  
Vol 04 (09) ◽  
Author(s):  
Niken Lastiti Veri Anggaini ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Health Literacy ◽  
Health Information ◽  
Health Behaviour ◽  
Structural Equation ◽  
Information Access ◽  
City Government ◽  
Equation Modeling ◽  
Path Coefficient ◽  
Health Empowerment ◽  
Access To Health

Health is an important factor affecting the development of a country. Everyone is aware of the importance of health for their productivity. However, the fact is that there are still many people who show unhealthy behaviors. There are several health problem in Indonesia. It is related to accessibility, capability, capacity and affordability. This study intends to look at and explain first, the influence of health information access to health literacy and health empowerment, second, the effect of health information access to health behaviour through health empowerment and health literacy as the mediation variables. The study was conducted in Blitar City Government, which is separated into three areas of administrative sub district. The sample used in this study amounted to 278 respondents. The length of time for this research is 6 month, November 2019-April 2020. Data analysis method used in this research is inferential statistical analysis using the structural equation modeling (SEM) GeSCA. The path coefficient of health information access to health empowerment of 0.382 stated that the level of health information access has a positive and significant effect on health empowerment. The path coefficient of health information access to health literacy of 0.093 stated that the health information access has a positive and significant effect on health literacy. Meanwhile, The path coefficient of health information access to health behaviour is -0.059. It stated that health information access has no significant effect on health behaviour. But, the effect becomes significant effect with the presence of health literacy and health empowerment as a mediating variable.

scholarly journals Back to reality: transition techniques from short HMD-based virtual experiences to the physical world

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robin Horst ◽  
Ramtin Naraghi-Taghi-Off ◽  
Linda Rau ◽  
Ralf Dörner
Keyword(s):  
Virtual Reality ◽  
Virtual World ◽  
Visual Cues ◽  
User Study ◽  
Physical World ◽  
Direct Communication ◽  
Common Presentation ◽  
Presentation Media ◽  
Virtual Experiences ◽  
Short Times

AbstractEvery Virtual Reality (VR) experience has to end at some point. While there already exist concepts to design transitions for users to enter a virtual world, their return from the physical world should be considered, as well, as it is a part of the overall VR experience. We call the latter outro-transitions. In contrast to offboarding of VR experiences, that takes place after taking off VR hardware (e.g., HMDs), outro-transitions are still part of the immersive experience. Such transitions occur more frequently when VR is experienced periodically and for only short times. One example where transition techniques are necessary is in an auditorium where the audience has individual VR headsets available, for example, in a presentation using PowerPoint slides together with brief VR experiences sprinkled between the slides. The audience must put on and take off HMDs frequently every time they switch from common presentation media to VR and back. In a such a one-to-many VR scenario, it is challenging for presenters to explore the process of multiple people coming back from the virtual to the physical world at once. Direct communication may be constrained while VR users are wearing an HMD. Presenters need a tool to indicate them to stop the VR session and switch back to the slide presentation. Virtual visual cues can help presenters or other external entities (e.g., automated/scripted events) to request VR users to end a VR session. Such transitions become part of the overall experience of the audience and thus must be considered. This paper explores visual cues as outro-transitions from a virtual world back to the physical world and their utility to enable presenters to request VR users to end a VR session. We propose and investigate eight transition techniques. We focus on their usage in short consecutive VR experiences and include both established and novel techniques. The transition techniques are evaluated within a user study to draw conclusions on the effects of outro-transitions on the overall experience and presence of participants. We also take into account how long an outro-transition may take and how comfortable our participants perceived the proposed techniques. The study points out that they preferred non-interactive outro-transitions over interactive ones, except for a transition that allowed VR users to communicate with presenters. Furthermore, we explore the presenter-VR user relation within a presentation scenario that uses short VR experiences. The study indicates involving presenters that can stop a VR session was not only negligible but preferred by our participants.

scholarly journals The Voices of Persons Living With Dementia: Exploring Their Information Needs to Live Well

2020 ◽  
Vol 4 (Supplement_1) ◽  
pp. 60-60
Author(s):  
Michelle Kimzey ◽  
Ramona Baucham ◽  
Chelsea Martin ◽  
Carol Howe
Keyword(s):  
Health Literacy ◽  
Health Information ◽  
Information Needs ◽  
Hybrid Approach ◽  
Convenience Sample ◽  
Health Decisions ◽  
People With Dementia ◽  
Care Partners ◽  
Diagnosis Of Dementia ◽  
Services And Supports

Abstract There are unique challenges and considerations when receiving the diagnosis of dementia. There are interventions, services, and supports for people with dementia and their care partners, yet they are often unknown, disconnected, and may not be widely available or easily accessible. Health literacy was defined as the degree to which individuals have the capacity to obtain, process, and understand basic health information and services needed to make appropriate health decisions. Using a descriptive qualitative design, the purpose of this study was to describe how persons living with dementia and their care partners obtain, understand, and use information to make health decisions to live well with dementia. The convenience sample consisted of 28 care partners and 15 people living with dementia participating in 6 separate focus groups. To illuminate findings, data was analyzed using a hybrid approach (deductive followed by inductive). Four themes emerged deductively as persons gain health literacy in dementia (access, understand, appraise, and understand). The notable finding is the trend at diagnosis where they first are “seeking the expert” ,and as they move from dependence and gain understanding they are “becoming the expert”, and finally as they apply information they are “acting as the expert” for themselves and others. Engaging them in research not only gave them a voice but more importantly it influenced the health information that will be developed and implemented by them. These findings suggest there is a wealth of knowledge to be gained by persons living with dementia and their care partners.

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