Health Literacy: Practical Tools to Make Information More Equitable

SBS 515 Subject & Catalog Number

Description

Health literacy is a powerful tool for health equity. This course focuses primarily on information assessment and health literacy best practice; everyone in public health has a responsibility to ensure that information is accessible, understandable, and usable. You will learn best practices for assessing health (e.g., asthma) and health-related (e.g., housing) information (e.g., print, video, website). You will learn about information assessment tools and how to analyze texts and tasks. After completing the course, you will be able to identify and analyze factors that ease or inhibit reading, comprehension, and use of health and health-related information to accomplish specific tasks and make decisions. Course assignments, discussions, and hands-on sessions will prepare you to a) analyze the strengths and weaknesses of information currently in-use, b) offer recommendations for improvement, and c) contribute to practice implementation and new research. In a course-long assignment, you will use information from a community-based or national organization. A final paper will highlight the assessments you use, the findings, and your best practice recommendations for the organization. If of interest, the Professor will provide connections to an organization that will offer their materials for this work, and who would be sent the final paper in return. By the end of this course, you will be able to bring health literacy best practice for information assessment and improvement into any area of public health to advance health equity.