Saar Kuzi
Alessandra Coutinho Fernandes
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Elle Meisner
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Landon J. Kunzelman
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Social/public policy hurdles for generating and administering vaccines
Does health literacy make a difference in parental preferences for childhood vaccination decisions?
Health literacy is the ability of patients to find, understand, and use health-related information to make good decisions about their medical care and health. Because children cannot make these decisions regarding vaccinations for themselves, I believe that the significance of health literacy for parents is greatly magnified. Unfortunately, as we learned during our last FCM session, low health literacy is much more common than we realize. Studies show that about one third of American adults have limited health literacy and this rate is even greater in certain population subgroups, such as older adults and some ethnic minorities.
Finding information about vaccines is not difficult because there is so much information online that is easily accessible. For example, the CDC website alone has a wealth of information directed towards parents, adults, and even healthcare providers. (http://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/index.html) Through these various links, anyone can learn about vaccination requirements, how vaccines work, why they are safe, and so much more. However, I believe that the issue of health literacy regarding vaccinations arises from the ability of parents to understand the wealth of information available to them and how to use it.
Take the following link as an example:
http://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/parents/vaccine-decision/index.html
The numerous links lead to more links, which lead to even longer chunks of information, can be overwhelming for anyone to thoroughly sift through. As future healthcare providers, we need to be cognizant of the significance of health literacy in medicine. While many of us consider vaccinations a no-brainer decision, we must take the time to effectively communicate with and educate our patients.
Other sources:
How to Bridge the Health Literacy Gap by Dr. Barry Weiss, MD
http://www.aafp.org/fpm/2014/0100/p14.html
@Phu Huynh I really appreciated that you tied in health literacy to this topic. It's an extremely important issue and is often times the root of the problem. I also agree with @Luis Tinoco Garcia that sometimes patients either lack the knowledge to use a computer and/or ability to navigate the internet. I come from a very small town of 1700 people, and I know of several families who utilize the town's library computers for their internet needs, which is time out of their day that is not necessarily always guaranteed. I feel that access to resources is more of a problem than some realize. As future healthcare providers, we should strive to provide resources that are both understandable AND accessible to our patients.
I think you make a great point. Health literacy plays a fundamental role in the administration of vaccinations. However, I would like to add that in many cases patients lack the knowledge to use a computer and/or the ability to navigate the internet. In some case people simply do have the resources to be able to get their kids vaccinated. This is not a huge problem in the US compared the rest of the world. But I do agree that as future health providers we should strive to educate and present the wealth of information that exist today to our patients. Parents are the primary key players on whether a kid gets vaccinated or not.