From Content Knowledge to Community Change: A Review of Representations of Environmental Health Literacy

Kathleen M. Gray
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Kathleen M. Gray: Institute for the Environment, Center for Environmental Health and Susceptibility, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, NC 27599-1105, USA

IJERPH, 2018, vol. 15, issue 3, 1-17

Abstract: Environmental health literacy (EHL) is a relatively new framework for conceptualizing how people understand and use information about potentially harmful environmental exposures and their influence on health. As such, information on the characterization and measurement of EHL is limited. This review provides an overview of EHL as presented in peer-reviewed literature and aggregates studies based on whether they represent individual level EHL or community level EHL or both. A range of assessment tools has been used to measure EHL, with many studies relying on pre-/post-assessment; however, a broader suite of assessment tools may be needed to capture community-wide outcomes. This review also suggests that the definition of EHL should explicitly include community change or collective action as an important longer-term outcome and proposes a refinement of previous representations of EHL as a theoretical framework, to include self-efficacy.

Keywords: environmental health literacy; environmental exposure; environmental literacy; science literacy; self-efficacy; community-based participatory research (CBPR) (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2018
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (16)

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