Marissa Slack
11-18-07
When I began my pursuit of a research topic, my primary goal was to investigate the correlation between two basic concepts: poverty and literacy. As someone who has always been passionate about those who are less fortunate and felt strongly about all people deserving the same rights and privileges, examining the affects poverty can have on literacy skills was motivating. In the premature stages of my topic search I chose an essential question that proved to be much too broad, so after two revisions I narrowed it down to “ Illiteracy in poverty-stricken individuals in the U.S.: What are the implications? What steps have been and should be taken to rid society of this problem?” Unfortunately, I discovered that the time constraints of this class would not permit the extensive research necessary to answer this question, so I chose to hunt for a second query. The result of my second attempt was the relationship between Appalachia and literacy, but was unsuccessful due to a lack of data, direction, and motivation. After several hours of searching through various databases, however, I stumbled upon the term health literacy. Each article I read either discussed or reported on the role of health literacy in successful health care. I quickly learned that the concern of poor health literacy and its effects on patients’ health had only been declared a national problem in the last 5 years. Thus, there was little research on a crucial topic. What I learned next was even more interesting and relevant: I found no studies on health literacy related to speech-language pathology. Because there was a decent amount of literature on health literacy as it relates to the medical field, I decided to commit to the topic in hopes that relating the data to speech-language pathology would eventually be possible. It was only after I had completed the first draft of my research paper when I learned that from 1984 to 2003 there were only three studies conducted in the field of speech-language pathology. Initially, I was encouraged to know there was research on which to build. Unfortunately, the articles did not benefit me because of the angle at which I had chosen to research health literacy.
In this paper you will find information that addresses the impact that language, race, and education may have on an individual’s health literacy. In addition, the economic implications of poor health literacy in patients and the techniques ranked as most effective by healthcare professionals when interacting with an individual who has poor health literacy, are discussed. After analysis of this information I have offered not a cure to a national dilemma, but techniques that may be employed as alternatives for good health literacy within the field of speech-language pathology.
As previously mentioned, poor health literacy has only recently been declared as a national dilemma. Despite the lack of substantial literature that has been conducted in all medical fields, there is no time like the present for the field of speech-language pathology to consider the implications of poor health literacy on its patients. Only when the information I have presented is explored more thoroughly and the implementation of the given techniques examined can speech-language pathologists learn how to enhance communication of information to their patients.
