Research

Does Home Visitation Promote Health Literacy?
Duration: September 29, 2006 to October 31, 2008
Funded By:

• HRSA Agency for Healthcare Research & Quality
• NIH Office of Behavioral & Social Science Research
• National Institute for Child Health & Human Development

Introduction & Overview

Health literacy is emerging as a fundamental and urgent issue for public health, the healthcare system, and for home visitation programs. Low health literacy is a barrier to all the Healthy People 2010 health goals for the nation, particularly to reducing health disparities. In addition, low health literacy may be a significant barrier to parents’ goals for their children, and to home visitation program goals. This two-year project responds to these questions from federal research funding agencies:

• What is an effective channel to promote health literacy?
• How can we measure health literacy?

Healthy People 2010 Objective 11.2 - Improve the health literacy of persons with inadequate or marginal literacy skills.

Abstract

Pregnancy and early parenting is a time characterized by high need for health information, high readiness to learn and change, and first-time use of significant health services; a time when both the negative and positive effects of mothers’ literacy skills and functional health literacy pass to their children with lifelong consequences. The purpose of this project is to examine the influence – and the mechanisms of influence – of home visitation on maternal functional health literacy, that is, on disadvantaged mothers’ progress toward optimal levels of functioning in the health arena.

Across the country, established maternal-child health home visitation programs serve vulnerable families who lack resources, social supports and literacy skills to function well in the health arena during pregnancy and early parenting. These home visitation programs could prove to be an effective, efficient channel to promote functional health literacy among the primary health decision makers in growing families at risk.

Instruments that can measure the function in functional health literacy are urgently needed to improve understanding of health literacy beyond the current focus on reading ability. This project develops and validates functional health literacy scales to better understand and promote mothers’ progress toward higher functioning in the healthcare system and in health contexts at home.

Specific Aims

The purpose of this project is to examine the influence – and the mechanisms of influence – of home visitation on maternal functional health literacy, that is, on mothers’ progress toward optimal levels of functioning in the health arena. Instruments that can measure the function in functional health literacy are urgently needed to improve understanding of health literacy beyond the current focus on reading ability. This project develops and validates functional health literacy scales to better understand and promote mothers’ progress toward higher functioning in the healthcare system and in health contexts at home.

This project has 2 aims:

1. Demonstrate effects of home visitation on mothers’ health literacy (reading) skill and functional health literacy
2. Examine the utility of the Life Skills Progression (LSP) as a reliable measure of functional health literacy

         
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