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Low health literacy is common, difficult to spot, and negatively impacts health outcomes. In order to best fund and utilize libraries and librarians in realizing health literacy goals, new policies must be created. In a new report from the EveryLibrary Institute, authors Ellen Thieme and Christina Pryor review current issues with understanding and delivering health literacy services and make recommendations for changes to systems for better outcomes.
Low health literacy rates are found in nearly 40% of the population and frequently goes unnoticed. Libraries are particularly situated in communities and schools to help identify and support people at risk. Thieme and Pryor observe that “dedicated funding to libraries for literacy programs aiming to increase print, information, and health literacies is vital. Within these programs, curricula could be subject-focused - as opposed to the more general education sometimes seen in adult language and literacy initiatives - to most readily target the appropriate literacy in adult learners while respecting the demands of the bandwidth of adult learners.” These discussions have taken on a new sense of urgency because of the ongoing COVID crisis.
Key recommendations in the report focus on how literacy programs should be delivered by educators who match the demographics or are otherwise embedded in communities, how agencies and government organizations should make every effort to include and value libraries within literacy task forces, and how libraries should be offered the funding and agency to take the lead on literacy within these initiatives. This report will provide new insights to library leaders in public, academic and school settings.
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About the Authors
Ellen Thieme is the Catalysts for Community Health IMLS Funded Fellow at the University of Missouri- SISLT.
Christina N. Pryor, MLIS, is Interim Associate University Librarian for Health and Specialized Libraries and Interim Director of the J. Otto Lottes Health Sciences Library at the University of Missouri, Columbia, Missouri
Published in February 2022 by the EveryLibrary Institute NFP
To access more research and scholarship on public policy issues for libraries, please visit eveylibraryinstitute.org/research