Action research identifies best
practices for promoting maternal health literacy Following is a brief summary of
findings from our program of action research* with home visitation programs
that have been trained to use Beginnings Guides and the Life Skills
Progression to support reflective practice and promote Home
Visiting (MECHV) is an effective channel to promote maternal health literacy, Overall mothers (N=2572 including 23
men and a few grandparents) who participated in enhanced home visitation for
12-18 months achieved significant improvement in their use of information and Promoting
Maternal Health Literacy reduces disparities Additional findings suggest the
intervention reduced disparities related to literacy and age: •
Lower skilled readers made greater gains than
their more skilled counterparts. •
Teen mothers started at a major disadvantage but
made impressive gains in the first six months of service to nearly catch up
with their more experienced counterparts. Depression
and Maternal Health Literacy closely linked •
Both depressed and not-depressed mothers
improved their management of personal and child health and healthcare. Depressed mothers made greater gains
than not-depressed mothers, again reducing disparities. Depression
does not interfere with health literacy promotion efforts •
Depression improved slightly but significantly
over the service period. Home visitors were successful in supporting mothers to overcome multiple barriers to obtain depression treatment, demonstrating
increased understanding and utilization of health services -- that’s health
literacy. Major improvements in health literacy occurred even when changes in
depression were minor, suggesting the effect on health literacy is separate
from the effect on depression. Read
article in Maternal and Child Health Journal (full text free online). Maternal
Health Literacy may predict child developmental outcomes Preliminary
findings from our current study on the same database as the above studies
suggests maternal health literacy is closely related to child development, so
that efforts to promote health literacy also promote child development. Stay tuned. Is
it feasible and effective to integrate health literacy promotion into Medical
Home Outreach? This question is being addressed over
the next two years with Anthem/WellPoint as it pilots the intervention in 12
state Medicaid managed care organizations. WI is up. TX is next. Stay tuned. Integrating
health literacy promotion into Parents As Teachers curriculum is feasible and effective That is the preliminary finding from the Parents As Teachers Health Literacy
Demonstration Project that winds up this summer. The participating Parent
Educators and other stakeholders will review and interpret the results at a
Reflection Conference May 11. Stay tuned. * Action research, sometimes called “practitioner
research”, is a reflective process in which practitioners undertake research to
improve their own practice by learning from experience. The process
identifies ineffective practices to drop; promising practices to hone and
finally best practices to
disseminate. See Forest, M.E. & McNiff, J. (2007). Learning and
teaching in action. Health Information and Libraries Journal, 24, 222-226. |
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CategoriesBeginnings GuidesBreastfeeding Health Education Health Literacy Parenting Education Prenatal Education |
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