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Strengthening Critical Health Literacy for Health Information Appraisal: An Approach from Argumentation Theory

The overload of health information has been a major challenge during the COVID-19 pandemic. Public health authorities play a primary role in managing this information. However, individuals have to apply critical health literacy to evaluate it. The objective of this paper is to identify targets for s...

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Autores principales: Rubinelli, Sara, Ort, Alexander, Zanini, Claudia, Fiordelli, Maddalena, Diviani, Nicola
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: MDPI 2021
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8269373/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34201894
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph18136764
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author Rubinelli, Sara
Ort, Alexander
Zanini, Claudia
Fiordelli, Maddalena
Diviani, Nicola
author_facet Rubinelli, Sara
Ort, Alexander
Zanini, Claudia
Fiordelli, Maddalena
Diviani, Nicola
author_sort Rubinelli, Sara
collection PubMed
description The overload of health information has been a major challenge during the COVID-19 pandemic. Public health authorities play a primary role in managing this information. However, individuals have to apply critical health literacy to evaluate it. The objective of this paper is to identify targets for strengthening critical health literacy by focusing on the field of argumentation theory. This paper is based on the textual analysis of instances of health information through the lens of argumentation theory. The results show that critical health literacy benefits from: (1) understanding the concept of argument and the supporting reasons, (2) identifying the main argument schemes, and (3) the knowledge and use of the main critical questions to check the soundness of arguments. This study operationalizes the main aspects of critical health literacy. It calls for specific educational and training initiatives in the field. Moreover, it argues in favor of broadening the current educational curricula to empower individuals to engage in informed and quality decision making. Strengthening individuals’ critical health literacy involves interventions to empower in argument evaluation. For this purpose, argumentation theory has analytical and normative frameworks that can be adapted within a lay-audience education concept.
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spelling pubmed-82693732021-07-10 Strengthening Critical Health Literacy for Health Information Appraisal: An Approach from Argumentation Theory Rubinelli, Sara Ort, Alexander Zanini, Claudia Fiordelli, Maddalena Diviani, Nicola Int J Environ Res Public Health Article The overload of health information has been a major challenge during the COVID-19 pandemic. Public health authorities play a primary role in managing this information. However, individuals have to apply critical health literacy to evaluate it. The objective of this paper is to identify targets for strengthening critical health literacy by focusing on the field of argumentation theory. This paper is based on the textual analysis of instances of health information through the lens of argumentation theory. The results show that critical health literacy benefits from: (1) understanding the concept of argument and the supporting reasons, (2) identifying the main argument schemes, and (3) the knowledge and use of the main critical questions to check the soundness of arguments. This study operationalizes the main aspects of critical health literacy. It calls for specific educational and training initiatives in the field. Moreover, it argues in favor of broadening the current educational curricula to empower individuals to engage in informed and quality decision making. Strengthening individuals’ critical health literacy involves interventions to empower in argument evaluation. For this purpose, argumentation theory has analytical and normative frameworks that can be adapted within a lay-audience education concept. MDPI 2021-06-23 /pmc/articles/PMC8269373/ /pubmed/34201894 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph18136764 Text en © 2021 by the authors. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
spellingShingle Article
Rubinelli, Sara
Ort, Alexander
Zanini, Claudia
Fiordelli, Maddalena
Diviani, Nicola
Strengthening Critical Health Literacy for Health Information Appraisal: An Approach from Argumentation Theory
title Strengthening Critical Health Literacy for Health Information Appraisal: An Approach from Argumentation Theory
title_full Strengthening Critical Health Literacy for Health Information Appraisal: An Approach from Argumentation Theory
title_fullStr Strengthening Critical Health Literacy for Health Information Appraisal: An Approach from Argumentation Theory
title_full_unstemmed Strengthening Critical Health Literacy for Health Information Appraisal: An Approach from Argumentation Theory
title_short Strengthening Critical Health Literacy for Health Information Appraisal: An Approach from Argumentation Theory
title_sort strengthening critical health literacy for health information appraisal: an approach from argumentation theory
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8269373/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34201894
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph18136764
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