Is Your WebLitLegit? Finding Safe and Good Health Information on the Internet.

BACKGROUND: There exists a paucity of literature about teenager health literacy in general and teenagers are likely to turn to the internet for health information. Therefore, they need good e-health literacy to properly understand and apply the information obtained. Yet, many have limited e-health literacy, lacking the knowledge and skills to filter and distinguish reliable from unreliable health information and searches return large amounts of information, making it difficult to recognize whether information is reputable and raising concerns regarding teenagers' safety. Brief Description of Activity: We developed a toolkit in collaboration with community-based organizations serving teenagers and teenagers themselves usable with brief training to present a 1-hour, interactive workshop. We transformed current adult information for locating and appraising online health information into a teenager friendly format using relevant health topics to engage participants. IMPLEMENTATION: We met teenagers in teenager-friendly settings where they already gather to engage them and leverage the relationship fostered within those settings to bridge positive and negative social determinant influences on health literacy and e-health literacy as well as cross potential cultural, economic, political, and demographic barriers. Using the "train the trainer" method to build sustainability, we trained teenagers and group leaders to use the toolkit to run workshops with teenagers and placed the components in an easily available online format. RESULTS: After completing the workshop, teenager participants expressed a high level of confidence in using Medline Plus, locating health information online, identifying Truth versus Trash and making health decisions. Most teenagers reported they would recommend the WebLitLegit workshop to their friends and it improved their ability to find credible online health information. LESSONS LEARNED: The workshop's practical application provided participants with real-life examples for evaluating online information using the "LEGIT" acronym. The integration of this community-based program fostered relationships between the teenager participants, community organizations, and university students and faculty. All of the organizations involved benefited through exposure to health literacy concepts and knowledge of evaluation criteria, which may help expand e-health literacy in the community because the students, teenagers, and community partners are able to sustainably share the toolkit within their social network. [HLRP: Health Literacy Research and Practice. 2022;6(2):e151-e158.] Plain Language Summary: Teenagers use the internet to find health information but have difficulty deciding if the information is correct and safe. WebLitLegit workshops help teenagers find correct and safe information to make health decisions. Teenagers completing the workshop thought their ability to find correct information and make good health decisions improved. This best practice adds to the literature by addressing needed teenager e-health literacy.

A Psychometric Analysis of the Health Literate Health Care Organization-10 Item Questionnaire.

The concept of a Health Literate Healthcare Organization (HLHO) is a relatively new approach to health literacy that moves the focus from the individual patient to the overarching health care system. The HLHO-10 questionnaire was developed internationally to assess the 10 Attributes of HLHOs as described by participants of the Institute of Medicine Roundtable on Health Literacy. The purpose of this study was to establish reliability and validity of the HLHO-10 among a sample of United States hospitals. Reliability and validity were established through assessing the factor structure for the HLHO-10 and psychometric evaluation. The HLHO-10 was found to be reliable with a Cronbach's alpha of .855 and a two-factor structure was revealed through exploratory factor analysis. Additional research is needed to further validate use of the HLHO-10 in the U.S., but initial findings of this emerging tool are promising and timely as the issue of health literacy comes to the forefront of U.S. health care systems and associated regulatory agencies. [HLRP: Health Literacy Research and Practice. 2022;6(2):e137-e141.].

Original Research: Assessing Organizational Focus on Health Literacy in North Texas Hospitals.

OVERVIEW: In 2012, the Institute of Medicine Roundtable on Health Literacy established 10 attributes of a health literate health care organization that, if instated, would improve health information and empower patients to make more informed health decisions. Few studies have assessed how well organizations meet these attributes. PURPOSE: This study sought to describe the extent to which health care systems in North Texas were adopting policies and practices that address the 10 attributes of a health literate health care organization. More specifically, we sought to describe key organizational leaders' and clinicians' perceptions in this regard. STUDY DESIGN AND METHODS: This was a mixed-methods study, conducted with a convenience sample of 74 key informants from 13 hospitals across five health care systems. Informants provided demographic data, and their perceptions of the extent to which their hospital met the 10 attributes were measured via the Health Literate Health Care Organization 10-item questionnaire (HLHO-10) and semistructured interviews. RESULTS: Mean scores for HLHO-10 items ranged from 3.74 to 5.39, with 7 as a maximum score. Qualitative data provided richer content, elaborating on the survey results. Workforce training in health literacy, patient inclusion in health information development and evaluation, and communication about health care costs were rated the lowest and were described as issues of concern. CONCLUSION: Study findings indicated limited leadership and little systemic promotion of efforts to ensure health literate health care organizations, although individual health literacy champions sometimes stepped up with creative initiatives.