‘Health literacy for all’: exploring the feasibility of an intervention to reduce health disparities among rural children

ABSTRACT

Roughly one in five U.S. children live in rural areas and they are more likely than nonrural children to experience chronic illnesses, unfulfilled medical needs, and poverty – yet health literacy intervention research for rural children is lacking. Thus, this study explores a health literacy intervention in two rural public elementary schools that have very different socioeconomic levels, educational achievement rates, and initial health literacy scores. Findings show significant improvement in health literacy in the low-income school, such that the initial differences in health literacy between the two schools were no longer present at posttest (p < .001). There was a slight improvement in School 1 students' perceived confidence to communicate with healthcare providers, but School 2 students' communication confidence did not change from pre to post intervention. The hopeful outcomes suggest implications for future school-based interventions that teach young children about health communication, self-efficacy, and critical decision-making.

KEYWORDS:

• Health communication
• health literacy
• children’s health
• health disparities

Acknowledgements

We would like to thank Samantha Stanley and Tamara Mills for their assistance with this study.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Data availability statement

Data set is located with second author. For information about the data set, please contact second author.

Notes

1 This was part of a larger study assessing effects of health literacy curricula on elementary school children.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by Atlantic General Hospital and Healthcare System.