Forget career studies, we need to teach health literacy in schools

[A Former User]

Love this conversation! YES and YES we need better health and also digital health literacy at all levels. I would argue we should be starting in kindergarten with the healthy choices and exercise stuff. Young kids who understood about smoking's effect on the lungs (mine as an example) learn at 12 or so and then they lobby their smoking parents -- usually successfully. Who can say "no" to their kids?

And in high school, we need basic life skills, financial literacy and definitely health literacy including all the stuff listed in the article above. If the teenagers understand more about the system, they can guide parents and grandparents. What a win that would be? So what ideas are there to get this on the curriculum? Are there examples anywhere in Canada? Should some of us put together a webinar to offer to schools? Thoughts, folks, ideas. Does anyone want to spearhead this as a project? Who wants to join in?

[A Former User]

Here's another idea: what about a trained, supervised, supported and paid youth and citizen "job corps" to serve as patient navigators for the vast numbers of people who cannot guide themselves through healthcare. The guides would learn so much for their future, including when to ask for help. The guided would receive much more coordinated and timely care (even picking up prescriptions and escorts to appointments would be awesome). Much of the work would be simple with complex or complicated issues to be escalated immediately for continued partnership with a specialist navigator (retired healthcare worker?). Pie in the sky? Maybe no. The costs of letting us fumble our way when we are most stressed and compromised would seem to be much much less tolerable. Just musing on optimistic possibilities.

[A Former User]

Discharge drop off is a huge patient safety concern. It has occurred more than once in my family. I believe there should be specially trained discharge RNs(?) who

[A Former User]

(Continued) RNs who co-ordinate all aspects of a safe hand off to home: Meds, appointments, special instructions, home-care and equipment coordination… The plan should be reviewed with the care partner at least hours (preferably a day) ahead of discharge. Concerns can then be addressed in a safe and timely manner. Volunteers (retirees? PFAs?) could be trained to then make a follow-up wellness call within the next two days following a discharge - using a prepared list of relevant questions. Any red flags would trigger further followup action.

[A Former User]

Carolyn, love the idea of high school students and youth being navigators. It could be the volunteer component of a high school program perhaps. It would also be a way of educating young people to the challenges and issues people face with the health and with the system.

[A Former User]

This is what we've been working on for 7 years in Alberta. It is not so easy to influence provincial curriculum in our province. I More chances with individual teachers/principals...
These two links https://myhealth.alberta.ca/HealthTopics/iKNOW-Health and iKNOW Health – Imagine Citizens Network will give an idea of the generalities of where we're at. ICN and the two youth councils with the pediatric hospitals here held a youth digital health literacy session last spring to help inform a path forward. It was well received. Youth are asking for lots of mental health literacy info fyi. No surprise there. I'd be interested in having a conversation with a few others engaged with youth already, about this with a hope to emerge from such a meeting with specific strategies for sharing/adapting our findings/materials to date with other youth groups/settings besides schools and hospitals.

[A Former User]

Great discussion and ideas. I'd also note that health care professionals sometimes don't understand the system. While in recovery for an operation, I received pretty vague info from a hospital nurse re. home care follow-up. I worked in home care so I knew more of the ins and outs, however, it was clear she didn't have a clue how it worked.

I'm all-in for patient navigators! Great idea to have student volunteers. Additionally what about infographic -based take-aways for patients for their instructions? They could have images and tick boxes. Heck I'd like to see leave behind cards with job descriptions. I.e. "My name is ______. I am an occupational therapist. I do xy and z. When you're receiving care sometimes it's hard to keep who is who straight, especially where there is a parade of health workers visiting you at home or in hospital. A little "calling card" might help (or put it on the back of a biz card).

And yes, health literacy would be a great option for schools (and also a good way to promote health care jobs as a future career possibility).

[A Former User]

Sophie, thank you for generating this conversation. It has brought a lot of areas that can be brought together. I do love the ideas of bringing young people into our system. We used to have, "Candy Strippers". I believe there role was to keep patients feeling comfortable and do some small jobs. My point now! I think our system has changed in a way that it would be hard to get a program going with students. Privacy, access, rules and regs have become the norm.
Take the statement talked about in this thread. Someone was being taught about mortgages but nothing about HC. Can we build on this? Since education is provincial but in (BC) it is a school board that makes a lot of decisions about curriculum.
How do we tailor a message that can go to these bureaucrats? If we do it across the country or find someone who is maybe we can make a difference?
This video shows what has happened to us over time. Our children need education in this area.
https://www.facebook.com/watch/?ref=external&v=936382627201461

[A Former User]

Pam and John and everyone else, great ideas. There are more and more of us talking about this issue so we will find a way to have us all meet and see what we can do further. Stay tuned.

[A Former User]

Happy to see the ideas and I noticed a research abstract today that I thought was interesting in this context. I liked the way they listed the processes that were helpful.

Sykes, S.; Wills, J.; Popple, K.The role of community development in building critical health literacy
Community Development Journal Oct 2018;53(4):751-7672018 Oct
DOI:10.1093/cdj/bsx019
There is growing international interest in health literacy and the processes by which it can be developed. Critical health literacy, one of the domains of health literacy, shows an affinity with the goals and processes of community development. Critical health literacy represents a cognitive and personal skill set that exists at either individual or community level and which is oriented towards social and political action on factors affecting health.

This article examines the relationship between critical health literacy and community development. Using an illustrative case study it explores the extent to which community development processes were used by a project to build critical health literacy amongst vulnerable populations and communities.

The case study demonstrates that in working to build the different elements of critical health literacy processes were used that were typical of community development. These processes included building self-efficacy and self-esteem, participatory and mutual learning techniques, acquisition of technical, practical and emancipatory knowledge, democratic processes of collective decision making, critical questioning, critical awareness raising and conscientization.

The article argues for community development to embrace and advance the concept of critical health literacy in order that; its potential to address inequalities in health can be achieved and to create an opportunity to embed community development more fully within health policy and practice.

Annette