Critical health literacy health promotion and people with intellectual disabilities

Abstract

Health literacy research and scholarship has largely overlooked the experiences of people with intellectual disabilities (ID), though growing concern about the health inequalities they face has increasingly given rise to health promotion interventions for this group. However, these interventions reference a rather limited vision of health literacy and largely fail to offer people with ID opportunities to develop capabilities to interact with health information in a more critical manner or to develop their understandings of how the wider social context impacts on their own experiences of health and health care. In this paper I offer some explanations for why people with ID have been excluded from the critical health literacy field. I suggest ways that a critical health literacy frame can advance understandings of (1) what literacy in general means for people with ID; (2) what it means for them to take part in critical health literacy practices, and (3) the nature of health texts – what they are and what they do for people with ID. I conclude with remarks about what involvement in critical health literacy initiatives might offer people with ID and also what a consideration of the experiences of people with ID can offer critical health literacy theorizing and research.

Keywords:

• health literacy
• intellectual disabilities
• health promotion
• critical literacy

Acknowledgements

This report is an independent research arising from a postdoctoral research fellowship supported by the National Institute for Health Research. The views expressed in this publication are those of the author and not necessarily those of the NHS, the National Institute for Health Research, or the Department of Health.

Notes on contributor

Deborah Chinn has a background as an NHS clinical psychologist working with people with ID, their families, and supporters. She is currently focusing on research activities as a postdoctoral research fellow funded by the UK National Institute of Health Research, based at King's College, London. Her program of research uses a health literacy framework to investigate how health information is offered to people with ID.

Notes

1. A request to an online ID research forum for unpublished studies or grey literature with a critical health literacy focus did not yield any further instances.