Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people in Australia, education and health literacy

Health literacy is a vital tool to build health knowledge and enable empowerment in health decision making at a community and individual level. There are different views of what constitutes health literacy with the most inclusive addressing broadly the skills and competencies required “to seek out, comprehend, evaluate, and use health information and concepts to make informed choices, reduce health risks, and increase quality of life” (Zarcadoolas 2005). Poor health literacy has been shown to impact health seeking behaviour, access and awareness to preventive health campaigns and adherence with treatment. Populations at risk of poor health have lower health literacy and this is compounded by lower socioeconomic status, lower education levels and, where language and cultural differences exist, these disparities may be magnified (Shaw 2008). Health literacy needs to consider both preventative health practices as well as treatment of identified conditions. While we know that poor health literacy does impact health seeking behaviour, access and awareness to preventive health campaigns and adherence with treatment, we seek and advocate solutions to improving health literacy, which are culturally appropriate and also support Indigeniety. We recognise the need to do both; otherwise gains in one area may be countered by lost ground in other areas with overall adverse consequences for Indigenous people and Australians as a whole. To do otherwise, produces a more unwell, inequitable Australian society.