Unit 2 Post

In the article titled Understanding Health Literacy: An Expanded Model (Zarcadoolas et al, 2005), the authors explore the importance of improving health literacy in the United States by presenting a multi-dimensional model that consists of four imperative domains: fundamental, science, civic, and cultural literacy. Interestingly, the authors employ various examples from the 2001 anthrax threat in order to demonstrate the significance of each domain. In my opinion, the domain that carries more weight in increasing the health literacy of an individual or a population is fundamental literacy. According to Zarcadoolas et al. (2005), fundamental literacy “refers to the skills and strategies involved in reading, speaking, writing and interpreting numbers“ (p.197). The Zarcadoolas et al article states that during the anthrax threat, majority of the information from the US government derived from the Centers for Disease Control home page (p. 198). At the time, CDC presented a case definition for anthrax that presumably placed several readers in a state of confusion. For instance, CDC defined anthrax as a gram-positive, non-motile, spore-forming bacterial rod that has three major clinical forms: cutaneous, inhalation, and gastrointestinal (CDC, 2002). Although the case definition contains various details, most individuals will undeniably experience difficulty in understanding all of the terminology. Personally, the only reason why I was able to understand the definition was because when I was an undergraduate, I took several biology courses at UC Irvine and I received a Bachelor’s Degree in Biological Sciences. Yet, most people cannot decipher the anthrax definition presented by the CDC. Also, in the article, the authors state that “when a text is hard to read, readers will generally persist, rearranging the text to make some meaning, even if it is not the text’s intended meaning“ (p.198). I completely agree with this statement because in reality, people do not have the patience or the time to read sentences word for word. People often like to receive and interpret information as quickly as possible. How many of us have gone through our textbooks and skipped over words that we did not know the definition to or how many of us have skipped over sentences that were too hard to comprehend? I know I have done that numerous times. Basically, it takes effort to look up words in the dictionary and some people would rather “skip” and “guess” the meaning of a particular text. Unfortunately, at times, the act of “skipping and guessing” compels people to jump to the wrong conclusions and become misinformed (p. 198). For experimental purposes, I decided to put the importance of fundamental literacy to the test. Essentially, I decided to test two of my best friends: one of them graduated from UC Irvine with a Bachelor’s in Political Science, while the other one is currently majoring in business at UC Davis. I requested both of them to read the CDC’s description and definition of anthrax shown in the Zarcadoolas et al article. Interestingly, they both claimed they did not understand a lot of the terminology. In other words, they did not understand the concept of “clinical forms” and were perplexed by some of the vocabulary such as “gram-positive,” “spore-forming,” and “cutaneous.” At the end, they came to the simple conclusion that anthrax leads to death. This is the same conclusion that most people would come to (p. 198). It’s not that my friends are unintelligent and that is why they could not understand the definition for anthrax. Instead, the truth is that “complex language does not meet basic needs of most readers” (p.199). Overall, I firmly believe that in order to increase health literacy, everyone should take part in building their vocabulary, as well as enhancing their reading, writing, and speaking skills. Also, in order to help improve health literacy, a more shared or common language should be utilized when conveying vital messages to a large network of people (p. 199). Furthermore, I believe that difficult terms and complex sentence structures should be clearly defined or explained in a way that can be comprehended by the general public.
References
Zarcadoolas et.al. “Understanding Health Literacy: An Expanded Model.” Health Promotion International, March 2005, (20)2.