Health Literacy and Medical Policy Advocacy

• Author: Thomas Zimmerman,Bonnie Stabile,Otmar Kloiber,Charles R. Doarn,Arnauld Nicogossian
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1002/wmh3.137
• Published date: 01 June 2015
• Date: 01 June 2015

Editorial

Health Literacy and Medical Policy Advocacy

Arnauld Nicogossian, Bonnie Stabile, Otmar Kloiber, Thomas Zimmerman,

and Charles R. Doarn

In 2014, almost one third of the world’s population had access to the f‌ixed

Internet through individual home computers or mobile devices, with China

and the United States being the top users. Introduction of mobile devices

produced signif‌icant shifts in access to information. The network penetration

is now approaching the size of the world population, providing more

convenient, affordable, on demand, and on the go services. This expanded

access has led to a new global cyber-society, which is inf‌luencing socio-

economic, political, and educational developments. Medical and public health

workers, professional societies, educators, and publishers, are either exploring

or already using social media for research, information dissemination and

educational purposes (Djuricich, 2014; Frosch et al., 2011). Online social

networking rapidly expands its reach to health consumers, patients, and

advocates. Unfortunately many websites can also contain misleading informa-

tion (Phillips, Wang, & Guenzel, 2005). Thus, health literacy is becoming an

important asset to promote health safety while navigating social media

“health” networks, in interpreting, understanding, and analyzing the informa-

tion, and effectively participating in advocacy programs. While access to

social media has dramatically increased, the same is not true for health

literacy. Socioeconomic disparities affect health literacy in developed economy

countries (Champlin & Mackert, 2015; Chesser, Burke, Reyes, & Rohrberg,

2015), while the information from developing countries is sparse or nonexis-

tent. Health literacy, especially underpinned by evidence, is a scarce

commodity, but when used effectively can lead to benef‌icial outcomes.

Smoking cessation; HIV/AIDS prevention and treatment; and, more recently,

political actions taken by the European Union (EU) and the Unite d States to

combat microbial resistance through comprehensive prevention plans, legisla-

tion, and research, are success stories. In contrast, we still struggle with

inadequate immunization rates for preventable infections worldwide, youth

World Medical & Health Policy, Vol. 7, No. 2, 2015

99

1948-4682 #2015 Policy Studies Organization

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