Immigrants Health Literacy - Essay Example

Immigrants Health Literacy Healthcare is an important aspect to the life of an individual. Without healthcare, it is difficult for a person to work, socialize or move. Irrespective of one’s status, healthcare is a basic need that all people should be entitled to. However, immigrant populations are vulnerable to serious health disparities that expose them to higher rates of morbidity and mortality compared to other people in society. They suffer from condition such as heart attacks, diabetes, cancer, HIV/AIDS and stroke among other conditions. These conditions demand effective communication about health risks for immigrants, yet immigrant health literacy is a concern. Low literacy levels among immigrants increases their health risks that may lead to deformities and death. Health literacy is defined as a set of skills and knowledge that one needs to function adequately and effectively in a healthcare environment. some of the aspects included in health literacy include the ability to understand verbal and written language especially the English Language. It also encompasses the ability to interpret either verbal or written health information. Despite the importance of health literacy, there are many people who lack such skills and knowledge and it becomes difficult for healthcare providers to provide effective healthcare services for such a group. One of such groups that lack health literacy is immigrants. This happens mostly because of language and linguistic barriers. This means that most of them cannot understand or communicate in English or any other language other than their mother tongue. This presents healthcare providers with difficulty in handling this group because communication is key in the provision of quality and effective healthcare services to patients, their families and communities. Low literacy levels among immigrants have been a major concern with respect to their ability and capacity to seek healthcare services. This means that it increases the risk for adverse health outcomes. In a research article, it is revealed, “Clear communication between health care providers and their patients is essential for patients to make good medical decisions, to receive effective instructions on how to take care of their illness, and to achieve desired health outcomes” (Wu et al. 1174). From the quote above, it is clear that communication is an important aspect in helping patients receives care. However, when a patient is illiterate, it is difficult for a healthcare provider to communicate with the patient in the hope of providing him/ her with the required healthcare services. This emphasizes the fact that immigrants illiteracy makes it difficult for them to seek or receive healthcare attention from the relevant bodies or providers. Healthcare provision does not only entail the provision of medical services but also other aspects that help the patient to heal, including cultural and individual needs. Zou and Parry argue, “The practice of nursing demands that nurses meet the cultural and education needs of diverse individuals, their families and their communities” (Zou and Parry 482). The authors clearly indicate that as part of the healthcare providers’ team, nurses have to address the educational and cultural needs of different people, their families and their communities as part of healthcare provision initiative. Despite the above fact, addressing these needs for immigrants is difficult because of illiteracy. Nurses can only provide for such needs when they have an understanding with the patient, his family and the community. Immigrant illiteracy makes this difficult because developing the required understanding becomes a difficult issue. In line with this argument, Zou and Parry state, “There is wide research evidence indicating that immigrants are at high risk for various chronic and non-communicable diseases (NCDs), have significant health knowledge deficits, and do not receive adequate health education” (Zou and Parry 483). The lack of sufficient knowledge and education on health among immigrants shows that illiteracy is a major cause of poor health outcomes among them compared to the local communities who have significant knowledge and education on healthcare. Migration and immigration has occurred in the US for a long period of time. For example, the significance of the agricultural sector in the US has encouraged immigration because majority of farm workers are immigrants especially from Latin America. To provide effective healthcare services for immigrants, there should be clear information about occupational injuries and illnesses that they experience in their setting. In the agricultural sector in the US, for instance, “ work in agriculture exposes these workers to numerous hazards, few data exist to document the number and types of occupational injuries and illnesses agricultural workers experience” (Arcury, Estrada and Quandt 238). There are reasons for the above fact and one of the most influential reasons is that many agricultural workers either speak little English or no English at all. The most common language they speak is Spanish (Arcury, Estrada and Quandt 239). This has made it difficult for the immigrants to be trained on occupational safety and health training, thereby exposing them to hazardous and risky situations while at work. Again, this emphasizes on the influence of immigrant illiteracy on health risks. There are certain groups that are at a higher risk in terms of health regardless of whether they are immigrants or not. These groups include the elderly, women and children. The elderly immigrants particularly are among the most vulnerable minority groups because of their limited health literacy. Because of this, they experience worse health outcomes compared to other groups. Health literary does not mean reading information only because it includes other types of literacy that include prose literacy, document literacy and quantitative literacy. The National Assessment of Adult Literacy gave these types of literacy. The prose literacy means skills and knowledge required to understand and use information from texts. Document literacy means skills and knowledge required to search and use different formats of continuous texts. Quantitative literacy means the skills and knowledge needed to understand basic mathematical skills to perform quantitative exercises. On top of these literacy skills, the elderly need both verbal and written communication skills, which are important in understanding health provision issues for the elderly (Gracie, Moon and Basham 876). However, most elderly immigrants do not have these types of literacy and it makes it difficult for them to receive effective healthcare services. Gracie, Moon and Basham argue, “Not only does limited health literacy of elderly immigrants’ affect their personal lives and the lives of their family members, it increases the chance of their becoming a potential financial burden on the United States” (Gracie, Moon and Basham 876). The lack of the literacy skills among the elderly immigrants is a problem even to the healthcare practitioners because they cannot understand them and help them by providing them with effective healthcare. Offering healthcare services is not the same as offering effective healthcare services because effectiveness encompasses the issues of literacy to enable healthcare practitioners make proper decisions. Therefore, the lack of health literacy among elderly immigrants is a problem in providing them with adequate and effective healthcare services. Research on the issue of health literacy among ethnic minority groups that include immigrants has been on the rise in the US in recent times. However, there is a lack of valid and useful health literacy tools for certain linguistic minorities and immigrants fall into this category. Han, Kim, Kim and Kim state, “To date, most health literacy research has focused on English- or Spanish-speaking populations, with no health literacy test available for Korean” (Han, Kim, Kim and Kim 254). This shows that research has concentrated on certain groups and left others, such as the Korean group. This means that while health literacy programs might be developed to help certain groups overcome their health illiteracy, others might be left out because of a lack of understanding of such groups because of their minority status but equally important. This is to say that health illiteracy might be being encouraged by the same healthcare mechanisms that are supposed to eradicate the illiteracy. There is a link between low health literacy and health outcomes. Low health literacy levels means that people do not have the capacity to seek or receive quality and effective health care services. This is because low health literacy prevents them from understanding the most important aspects of healthcare that are important for their health. In the United States for instance, approximately 80 million people have limited health literacy and this puts them at a high risk for poor health outcomes. The limited health literacy is even higher among the elderly, poor people, the minority and those who have less than a high school education (Berkman, Sheridan, Donahue, Halpern and Crotty 97). Immigrants are at risk of poor health outcomes because most of them are health illiterate because most of them have less than a high school education or have language barriers that prevent them from seeking or receiving effective healthcare provision. in a literature review conducted, Berkman, Sheridan, Donahue, Halpern and Crotty reveal, “Their findings were generally similar to ours, including low health literacy being related to less health related knowledge and poorer health status but were inconsistent regarding the relationship between low health literacy and overall use of health care services” (Berkman, Sheridan, Donahue, Halpern and Crotty 103). This means that studies also acknowledge that low health literacy is responsible for poor health outcomes irrespective of whether the extent to which cause-effect relationship can be proven does not exist. Most immigrant groups in the United States are from the Latino, Asian, Chinese, Korean and Vietnamese groups. These diverse groups have been found to have poor self-reported health status even when certain predictors of health status such as education are controlled. To this group, lack of understanding of the English language, which is the main form of communication in U.S., is one of the causes of poor health status among populations. In their study, Sentell and Braun state, “Limited English proficiency (LEP) is another key barrier to health care, also associated with poorer health status in Latinos, Asian Americans, and other racial/ ethnic groups” (Sentell and Braun 82). People who are isolated from verbal and written materials because of health illiteracy are not able to obtain, process of understand the basic information on health or access preventive or cure health services. This contributes to poor health outcomes in such groups because of their inability to process health related information. From the above information, it is clear that low health literacy causes poor health outcomes for immigrants. Some studies consider language barriers as part of low health literacy whereas others consider them as two different aspects. For instance, Sentell and Braun state that limited English proficiency and low health literacy are co-occurring barriers to health (Sentell and Braum 83). Despite the above fact, the combined health effects of the two are not well understood empirically or theoretically, especially among immigrants who are considered diverse racial/ ethnic groups. The fact is they cause poor health outcomes for these groups. In light of the above, there are several things that could be done to ensure that health literacy among immigrants is addressed to ensure that the health outcomes of immigrants are improved. First, research must be dedicated to understanding the health effects of health illiteracy among immigrants because as it stands, this understanding does not exist. This will help in ensuring that measures are taken to prevent such effects from occurring. The government, healthcare institutions and communities where immigrants live should collaborate in promoting health literacy among immigrants or in developing measures that will counter the effects of illiteracy so that immigrants do not suffer with poor health because of illiteracy. An example of such a measure will be to offer health education to immigrants using different languages and interpreters to ensure that all immigrants are included. In conclusion, health literacy is an important aspect in ensuring proper health outcomes for diverse populations. Immigrants in the US lack health literacy and this has contributed to poor health outcomes as discussed above. The lack of prose literacy, document literacy and quantitative literacy among immigrants has prevented them from seeking and receiving effective healthcare provision. It has also prevented health care providers from offering quality care to this population. Therefore, research must be done on immigrant health illiteracy and the effects on their health to develop measures to address this problem. The government should also collaborate with healthcare institutions and communities to address this problem. Works Cited Arcury, Thomas A., Jorge M. Estrada, and Sara A. Quandt. "Overcoming language and literacy barriers in safety and health training of agricultural workers." Journal of agromedicine 15.3 (2010): 236-248. Berkman, Nancy D., et al. "Low health literacy and health outcomes: an updated systematic review." Annals of internal medicine 155.2 (2011): 97-107. Gracie, Brownell, Sung Seek Moon, and Randall Basham. "Inadequate health literacy among elderly immigrants: characteristics, contributing, and service utilization factors." Journal of Human Behavior in the Social Environment 22.7 (2012): 875-895. Han, Hae-Ra, et al. "Measuring health literacy among immigrants with a phonetic primary language: A case of Korean American women." Journal of Immigrant and Minority Health 13.2 (2011): 253-259. Sentell, Tetine, and Kathryn L. Braun. "Low health literacy, limited English proficiency, and health status in Asians, Latinos, and other racial/ethnic groups in California." Journal of health communication 17.sup3 (2012): 82-99. Wu, Jia-Rong, et al. "Low literacy is associated with increased risk of hospitalization and death among individuals with heart failure." Journal of general internal medicine 28.9 (2013): 1174-1180. Zou, P., and M. Parry. "Strategies for health education in North American immigrant populations." International nursing review 59.4 (2012): 482-488. Read More