At Salud y Vida con Amigos, we’re creating Health Literacy Champions! Whether you are a community member, a community health worker, a community leader, or a member of a clinical team, we have the resources to help you learn how to become better communicators. Because we believe that understanding is only part of the solution – health professionals, teachers and individuals also need to communicate health information in a way that people can understand.
Before COVID-19, most health literacy efforts focused on use of plain language, appropriate graphics, and other basics. Those things are still important. But as COVID-19 has emerged, bringing with it what the World Health Organization has called an “infodemic,” new skills are needed to navigate the sea of information. that supported identifying misinformation, understanding data visualizations, basic statistical concepts At Salud y Vida con Amigos, health literacy is understood as a dynamic dance between the giver and receiver of health information. Traditionally, health literacy advocates have
focused on the skills of individuals receiving health information. For instance, Healthy People 2010 and Healthy People 2020 defined health literacy as “the degree to which individuals have the capacity to obtain, process, and understand basic health information and services needed to make appropriate health decisions.” Increasingly, however, health literacy is seen as a shared responsibility between individuals, organizations, and the communities where they live, work, and play. In other words, organizational health literacy is equal in importance to individual health literacy.
Health literacy is a shared responsibility between patients (or anyone on the receiving end of health communications) and providers (or anyone on the giving end of health communication). Both must communicate in ways the other can understand.” Helen Osborne
Salud y Vida Con Amigos uses Health literacy to help people find, understand, appraise, and act on information to protect themselves and their community from COVID-19. Salud y Vida con Amigos is funded by the Office of Minority Health/OASH/HHS and is a program of Doña Ana County.
Salud y Vida con Amigos
Doña Ana County Health and Human Services
845 N. Motel Blvd.
Las Cruces, New Mexico 88007
(575) 728-5591
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Site Design and illustrations by Krapohl Design.
Salud y Vida con Amigos is funded by the Office of Minority Health/OASH/HHS and is a program of Doña Ana County Health and Human Services.