Collaborative Processes of Developing A Health Literacy Toolkit: A Case from Fukushima after the Nuclear Accident

Following the Fukushima nuclear accident in 2011, the central government provided health and radiation-related information that was incomplete, difficult to understand and contradictory, leading to widespread distrust in the community. Thus, from 2013 to 2014, we developed and implemented a series o...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Journal of health communication 2018-01, Vol.23 (2), p.200-206
Main Authors: Goto, Aya, Lai, Alden Yuanhong, Kumagai, Atsushi, Koizumi, Saori, Yoshida, Kazuki, Yamawaki, Koji, Rudd, Rima E.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Access
Accidents
Central government
Collaboration
Community
education
Fukushima nuclear accident
Glossary
Health education
Health information
Health literacy
Health promotion
Health technology assessment
Interdisciplinary aspects
Literacy skills
Medical personnel
Nuclear accidents & safety
Numerical information
Nurses
Plain language
Professional training
Professionals
Program evaluation
Public health
Public health nurses
Radiation
Workshops
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Summary:Following the Fukushima nuclear accident in 2011, the central government provided health and radiation-related information that was incomplete, difficult to understand and contradictory, leading to widespread distrust in the community. Thus, from 2013 to 2014, we developed and implemented a series of health literacy training workshops for local public health nurses, often the first health care professionals with whom members of the community interact. The results from our program evaluation revealed that the task of paraphrasing professional terms and skills related to relaying numeric information to the community were difficult for the nurses to acquire. In 2016, to further support the communication efforts of public health nurses, we developed a pocket-size "health literacy toolkit" that contained a glossary explaining radiation-related terms in plain language and an index to measure the accessibility of both text and numerical information, so that nurses could calibrate and appreciate the literacy demand of information. This case study documents an interprofessional collaborative effort for the development of the toolkit, and highlights the iterative process of building health literacy skills in health care professionals.
ISSN:1081-0730
1087-0415
DOI:10.1080/10810730.2018.1423650