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Open Access 01-12-2014 | Editorial

Health literacy: a critical concept for public health

Author: Stephan Van den Broucke

Published in: Archives of Public Health | Issue 1/2014

Excerpt

Health literacy is gaining critical importance in public health. Since its introduction in the 1970s, the scientific literature on this subject has grown exponentially. To date, already more than 3000 publications on the topic are listed in Pubmed, 75% of which have been published in the last five years, and nearly 1000 have “health literacy” as a major MeSH term. …

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Peerson A, Saunders M: Health literacy revisited: what do we mean and why does it matter?. Health Promot Int. 2009, 24 (3): 285-296.CrossRefPubMed

Kaufman H, Skipper B, Small L, Terry T, McGrew M: Effect of literacy on breast-feeding outcomes. South Med J. 2001, 94 (3): 293-296.CrossRefPubMed

Dolan NC, Ferreira MR, Davis TC, Fitzgibbon ML, Rademaker A, Liu D, Schmitt BP, Gorby N, Wolf M, Bennett CL: Colorectal cancer screening knowledge, attitudes, and beliefs among veterans: does literacy make a difference?. J Clin Oncol. 2004, 22 (13): 2617-2622.CrossRefPubMed

Lindau ST, Tomori C, Lyons T, Langseth L, Bennett CL, Garcia P: The association of health literacy with cervical cancer prevention knowledge and health behaviors in a multi-ethnic cohort of women. Am J Obstet Gynecol. 2002, 186 (5): 938-943.CrossRefPubMed

Scott TL, Gazmararian JA, Williams MV, Baker DW: Health literacy and preventive health care use among Medicare enrollees in a managed care organization. Med Care. 2002, 40 (5): 395-404.CrossRefPubMed

Institute of Medicine: Health Literacy: A Prescription to end Confusion. 2004, Washington DC: The National Academies

Sørensen K, Pelikan JM, Röthlin F, Ganahl K, Slonska Z, Doyle G, Fullam J, Kondilis B, Agrafiotis D, Uiters E, Falcon M, Mensing M, Tchamov K, Van den Broucke S, Brand H: Health literacy in Europe: comptive results of the European health literacy survey (HLS-EU). Eur J Public Health. -in press

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10.

Davis T, Wolf MS: Health literacy: implications for family medicine. Fam Med. 2004, 36 (8): 595-598.PubMed

11.

Sørensen K, Van den Broucke S, Pelikan JM, Fullam J, Doyle G, Slonska Z, Kondilis B, Stoffels V, Osborne RH, Brand H: Measuring health literacy in populations: illuminating the design and development process of the European Health Literacy Survey Questionnaire (HLS-EU-Q). BMC Public Health. 2013, 13 (1): 948-CrossRefPubMedPubMedCentral

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13.

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Nutbeam D: Health literacy as a public health goal: a challenge for contemporary health education and communication strategies into the 21st century. Health Promot Int. 2000, 15 (3): 259-267.CrossRef

Title: Health literacy: a critical concept for public health
Author: Stephan Van den Broucke
Publication date: 01-12-2014
Publisher: BioMed Central
Published in: Archives of Public Health / Issue 1/2014
Electronic ISSN: 2049-3258
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1186/2049-3258-72-10

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