Recent articles: health literacy; Teenagers' critical thinking with news

Hsu, W.C. (2019). The Effect of Age on Electronic Health Literacy: Mixed-Method Study. JMIR Human Factors, 6(2). DOI: 10.2196/11480 https://humanfactors.jmir.org/2019/2/e11480/ This was a study in Taiwan: it "aimed compare the differences in eHealth literacy between traditional college students (aged between 18 and 22 years) and older adult students (aged between 55 and 72 years). It also summarizes the experiences and performances of these 2 groups in terms of searching online health-related information." They administered a questionnaire and then interviewed 5 people from each age group (the abstract implies they interviewed more, but those are the numbers for the questionnaire). The study is interesting in revealing that the two age groups were interested in different aspects of health, and also used different means for finding information. Both groups had concerns about evaluating the information.

Riggs, E. et al. (2019). Afghan families and health professionals’ access to health information during and after pregnancy. Women and birth. [early online publication]. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.wombi.2019.04.008
This was a qualitative study of 16 Afghan women and 14 Afghan men with a baby aged 4–12 months, and 34 health professionals based in Melbourne, Australia. "Verbal information provided by a health professional with an interpreter was the most common way in which information was exchanged, and was generally viewed favourably by Afghan women and men. Families had limited access to an interpreter during labour and some families reported difficulty accessing an interpreter fluent in their dialect. Availability of translated information was inconsistent and health professionals occasionally used pictures to support explanations. ... Consistent, understandable and ‘actionable’ information is required to meet the needs of diverse families. Health professionals need to be supported with adequate alternatives to written information and access to appropriate interpreters."

Ku, K. et al. (2019). What Predicts Adolescents’ Critical Thinking about Real-life News? The Roles of Social Media News Consumption and News Media Literacy. Thinking Skills and Creativity [early online publication]. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tsc.2019.05.004 The authors investigated "how social media news consumption and news media literacy contributed to 1505 adolescents’ critical thinking about a real-life news report" "Highlights" were: "Skeptical view towards personalized news recommendation, internal news seeking motive and habit of news source tracking predicted better critical thinking" "Adolescents performed well in understanding news content, identifying standpoint, and distinguishing fact from claim; but underperformed in evidence evaluation." "Knowledge of news production contributed to more critical processing of news information." "Older adolescents were overall stronger critical thinkers than younger adolescents."
Photo by Sheila webber: inflatable minion at Weston Park fair, May 2019